Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers was impressed with aspects of Heart of Midlothian's performance despite what was on paper a comfortable win.

The Scottish Premiership champions ran out 4-1 winners at Tynecastle Park through goals from Kyogo Furuhashi, Nicolas Khun and a double from substitute Adam Idah. Musa Drammeh, also a second-half change, scored Hearts' consolation.

That does not tell the full story. Hearts were "excellent" in the first half, according to the Celtic boss.

Rodgers said this was partly down to being caught off guard by Hearts' shape. 

"First half, I thought Hearts did well," said Rodgers. "They surprised us a little bit with the pressing structure.

"Obviously, I'd watched Neil and his team. They'd normally pressed in 4-4-2, but that was slightly different.

"We had some good movements in the first half, but our positioning wasn't quite right, which meant we got caught on the ball a little bit more often than I would have liked.

"Once we went through that at half-time and figured it out and got our positioning better, then we were able to play through that press really well and scored some fantastic goals.

It has been a familiar story for Hearts in recent times. Like the loss to Heidenheim, and to a lesser extent the recent defeat at Ibrox,  Hearts failed to convert their chances into goals. 

That meant another frustrating night in front of goal from Lawrence Shankland.

Though Rodgers was delighted with how his central-defensive pairing of Camerion Carter-Vickers and Auston Trusty coped with the "really good striker".

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"I think that whoever put in there, whether it's Liam Scales or whoever, they've been really, really solid," said the Celtic manager.

"I think what you see with his physicality, Auston's playing against a really good striker in Lawrence Shankland, but he's really strong and aggressive, and then he's got that speed when it goes in behind.

"I've always said that centre-half position is really important. It's two players, but it's really one position, and the balance has to be right."

Rodgers also cleared up a moment during the game where there was a bit of back and forth between the Celtic bench and the home crowd.

"There's a wee guy who never stopped talking the whole game," he said. "I always enjoy coming here. It's a great place to come and play. It's very intense. They want to win, absolutely. But unfortunately, so do we."