Aberdeen maintained its 100 per cent record in the Scottish Premiership with a 3-1 win at Hearts to leave Celtic five points adrift despite a 6-0 thrashing of Dundee.

David Goodwillie got the league leader off to the ideal start, heading home from Niall McGinn’s set-piece delivery inside 10 minutes and the Northern Ireland international then doubled his side’s advantage midway through the first half.

McGinn was back to acting as the provider on the stroke of half-time by teeing up Goodwillie to slide the ball into the bottom corner and, although Hearts pulled one back through Igor Rossi and saw Callum Paterson rattle the crossbar, the visitor saw out the win.

That eighth successive victory for Aberdeen meant that Celtic could not close the gap to the summit despite a comprehensive triumph over Dundee.

Leigh Griffiths looked dangerous from the off and added to Tomas Rogic's opener to put Celtic two goals to the good after 16 minutes.

A quickfire double from Emilio Izaguirre extended its advantage to four just after the hour-mark, before Scott Brown and Nadir Ciftci netted within a minute of each other to round off the scoring at the death.

The win gives Celtic a better goal difference than Aberdeen and sends them four points ahead of Hearts.