Dundee - 0 Celtic - 1 It is 14 years since Dundee beat Celtic at Dens Park and on the evidence of this performance yeterday it could be as long again before that miserable sequence of results is ended.
The champions stayed on Rangers' heels with a narrow but well-deserved victory in a tedious match.
Celtic manager Martin O'Neill would clearly have preferred to have secured the three points earlier by dint of a second goal.
"At 1-0 anything can happen," he said. "We spurned a few chances and you wonder if you'll pay for that, but we defended stoutly in the last 10 minutes when we had to," he said.
There was only disapointment for his opposite number Jim Duffy, who accepted his team had been beaten by an exceptional goal and added: "I felt we responded well after that and, although you're never going to dominate a team like Celtic, I thought we had some decent spells."
But, by and large, Dundee were truly miserable.
Henrik Larsson's excellent goal after 17 minutes followed a free-flowing move. The Swede found Steve Guppy with a superb crossfield ball, after some good work by Stilian Petrov and Momo Sylla, and after receiving it back he chipped over Julian Speroni. It was Larsson's 10th goal of the season.
Paul Lambert dominated midfield and Guppy troubled the home team, who are one-paced and seriously lightweight up front, where Nacho Novo missed their only two decent chances.
Celtic should have added a second goal before half-time but Larsson headed a good opportunity wide. Chris Sutton forced Speroni into an outstanding save after an hour and Petrov hit the bar with a clever effort eight minutes later.
Afterwards Celtic's chief executive Ian McLeod reacted to the continued sectarian singing that the Parkhead club are trying to eliminate. He sent 50,000 letters to season-ticket holders recently asking for their co-operation but it certainly has not stamped out the tunes yet.
"Some of it today was disappointing but predictable," he admitted.
"We can't change people's beliefs overnight. What we have done is put down a marker on how we want fans to behave because this club doesn't align itself to any political group."
Celtic remain a point behind Rangers, who recorded a 3-0 victory over Partick Thistle through a Ronald de Boer double and an opener from Peter Lovenkrands.
Hearts, with goals from their recent signings Jean-Louis Valois and Mark de Vries, overcame Dundee United, and Lee Bullen's effort for Dunfermline was enough against Motherwell.
Hibernian saw Ian Murray and Tom McManus score early in their 2-0 win at home to Kilmarnock.
DUNDEE: Speroni, MacKay, Smith, Hutchinson (Lovell 79), Novo, Hernandez Santos, Rae, Nemsadze, Caballero, Sara, Wilkie. Subs not used: Langfield, Milne, Mair, Brady. Booked: Rae.
CELTIC: Douglas, Valgaeren, Balde, Laursen, Sylla (Crainey 80), Lambert, Lennon, Petrov, Guppy, Larsson, Sutton (Hartson 74). Subs not used: Gould, Fernandez, Maloney. Booked: Lennon. Goals: Larsson 18.
Referee: J Underhill (Scotland).
