Celtic waved farewell league duty to Tynecastle for at least two seasons after today’s 2-0 victory in Edinburgh. With the diets suffering a -15 points deduction at the start of the campaign after going into Administration (what is it with Hun teams…Airdrie, Rangers, Hearts and Sevco & not paying their debts?) and losing most of their experienced players the writing was truly on the wall for them before a competitive ball was kicked this season.
The Jambos have at least tried to work their way out of a dire financial situation following the crazy reign of Vladimir Romanov. By the looks of things a deal will soon be struck following the intervention of a wealthy Hearts supporter, who in turn wants to hand over club ownership to the fans. It makes you wonder why a far bigger club with so many millionaire and billionaire fans couldn’t do likewise to save their team from being consigned to the confines of history books following liquidation.
Hearts and Celtic will never be bosom buddies but it would be fair to say Tynecastle is one of the better venues in Scottish football and will be a miss in the top tier of the game.
The pre-match talk was primarily about Fraser Forster’s attempts to break ex-Aberdeen keeper Bobby Clark’s Scottish shut-out record and if Leigh Griffiths could score his first goal for Celtic against Hearts, a team as a Hibs supporter it would be fair to say Leigh doesn’t have much time for. They both wouldn’t let us down….
The first half was quite a drab affair but it became obvious early on Celtic were retaining possession in easy defensive areas and not over-committing players forward as they were desperate for Fraser and the club to break the Scottish record set in 1971.
There was attacking flashes with Stokes, Griffiths, Commons and Van Dijk all having shots blocked or scraping the top of the bar. In saying that there was nothing clear cut that overly threatened the Hearts goal while at the other end Forster fumbled a cross before Mulgrew made a sloppy pass that resulted in a couple of Hearts corners with the record two minutes within reach! With pulses racing Celtic defended well and then as the clock struck 31 minutes, Forster and Celtic had set a new record, which by the end of the game stood at an astonishing 1215 minutes without losing a goal. Fraser has been absolutely terrific but he’s the first to say the support he’s had from his defensive team-mates has been equally outstanding. With that record safe another 97 minutes is required to break Edwin Van Der Sar’s UK record at Man Utd. A tough game away to Aberdeen is next that will require Fraser and his team-mates to be at their best to keep their next target on track.
The second half required Celtic to raise their game and the visitors opened the scoring with a quite fabulous piece of play by both Stokes and Griffiths. The Dubliner picked the ball up outside his own penalty area and expertly beat two Hearts players before firing a quite brilliant forty yard pass into the path of his strike partner. Griffiths showed good strength to hold off Wilson, turning inside then out to his favoured left side, before firing a powerful shot into the Hearts net to open his Celtic goalscoring account. To say Griffiths was overjoyed would be an understatement as he first shared his happiness with the home support (see main picture) before sprinting to the technical area to jump on top of Celtic manager Neil Lennon who has publicly shown great faith in the Scottish striker.
This should have been the time for Celtic to slice Hearts apart but other than a fifteen minute spell of controlled play, the hosts came more into the match and start putting a lot of balls in and around the Celtic penalty area that our defence remained strong to deal with.
As the game ticked into its last few seconds, along clearance from Brown had substitute forward Amido chasing down a ball with Hamill he was always second favourite to win. The powerful forward used his strength to outmuscle the Hearts skipper and power towards goal. Rather than shoot as many strikers may have done, Amido was selfless as he squared to fellow sub Pukki who calmly placed the ball into the corner of the net to secure Celtic’s 2-0 victory and the clubs 15th consecutive league victory.
Only 11 more games to beat our own domestic record of consecutive wins set in 2004 and another 15 to beat Benfica’s overall record J
Celtic Team; Forster, Matthews, Mulgrew, Ambrose, Van Dijk, Biton, Brown (Capt), Johansen (Boerrigter), Commons, Stokes (Balde) & Griffiths (Pukki).
Hearts 0 Celtic 2 (Griffiths 58, Pukki 90+3).
ETims Player of the Match. Virgil Van Dijk and Nir Biton absolutely strolled through the game but for his fantastic debut goal to open the scoring and his first as a Celtic player our POTM is Leigh Griffiths.
Biton is going to be an absolute star, he never came close to breaking sweat.