Miller is a heart-throb

CELTIC 5 HEARTS 0

PAUL FORSYTH

CELTIC 5
Miller 9, 51; Stamp 12, og; Larsson 36, Varga 42
HEARTS 0

THOSE who choose to interpret Hearts’ progress on the continent as evidence of Scotland’s growing strength in depth were disabused of that notion in quite disturbing fashion yesterday. After his team’s thorough humiliation in the east end of Glasgow, the only consolation for Craig Levein was that they will not have to face Celtic in the UEFA Cup.

The gap between the Old Firm and the rest is, on this evidence, becoming only wider. The visitors were two goals down in 12 minutes, four by half-time and so devoid of hope in the teeth of Celtic’s rampant thrusts that even the hyperactive Martin O’Neill took it upon himself to spend much of the second half sitting in the dugout. His team have scored 19 goals in their last six matches against Hearts.

Bordeaux, the Edinburgh side’s next European opponents, will have enjoyed this skewed spectacle rather more than Anderlecht. Celtic head to Brussels for Tuesday’s Champions League match full of momentum, their leadership of the SPL secure and only a few niggling injuries to worry about.

Chris Sutton was rested here so that his hamstring could gather strength. Stan Varga, who scored his first goal for Celtic, trooped off midway through the second half with a sore foot. And Alan Thompson, back in the side after tweaking a muscle at Ibrox, complained of another twinge when he was substituted on the hour. "That is just a wee bit of a worry," said O’Neill. "His was a wonderful performance."

Similar praise was being showered once again on the modest shoulders of Liam Miller. It just gets better and better for the young Irishman, who scored two goals, strengthened his case for an international call-up and, by the end of the match, heard his name reverberate around the stadium as though he had been at the centre of it for years.

Miller’s new sense of belonging was underlined by one sublime flick midway through the second half. From just outside the penalty area, he lofted the ball over Hearts’ defence as though his right boot were a flipper, and invited Henrik Larsson to claim Celtic’s sixth. Although the Swede hesitated and could find only the side netting, his hands were aloft in recognition of the manoeuvre.

The midfielder had not long grabbed his second goal of the match, Celtic’s fifth, a simple side-footed effort from the same back-post position that he scored against Lyon. This time it was John Hartson who provided the cross, heading back across goal a deep centre by substitute Shaun Maloney. "He has been wonderful for us," said O’Neill of his young prodigy. "He has given us that wee bit of extra energy. He is very, very lively and he is getting on the end of things. His goal against Lyon has given him an enormous boost."

It was the midfielder’s privilege to complete Celtic’s first, and best, goal of the match. Stilian Petrov, who danced on to a raking midfield pass, would have been awarded a penalty had he not survived a lunging leg and laid the ball off to Larsson. When the goalkeeper could only parry the Swede’s low, angled shot, Miller darted forward to crash the loose ball past Tepi Moilanen.

All this UEFA Cup talk has served to create the misleading impression that Hearts have been going well recently. They have now secured just one win, against Zeljeznicar at home, in their last six outings. This latest setback at least marked the end of what has been a demanding period, encompassing two distracting matches against foreign opponents and a thrashing by Rangers to boot. The team who are widely regarded as the best of the rest have suddenly slipped from their perch and into the chasing pack.

Hearts fielded the same side who were successful in Sarajevo last week, but discovered that their minds were suffering something of an eastern bloc. All four of the goals by which they found themselves in arrears at half-time could be attributed at least in part to their own carelessness. "We shot ourselves in the foot so often we don’t have any toes left," said Levein.

Celtic’s second, in particular, could not be described as of their own making. Varga’s straightforward throw-in was flicked on by Larsson so that Phil Stamp, without so much as a defender near him, inexplicably directed a firm downward header into the bottom corner. "It was a good header," said Jackie McNamara later. Stamp was not laughing.

You would have thought the Hearts midfielder had done enough damage for one week. A difficult seven days for Stamp began with reports that he had trashed his rented home, and ended with another act of wanton recklessness.

When he vacated the premises at half-time, predictably replaced by Paul Hartley, there was no danger of the landlord complaining.

Larsson was lapping up his blossoming prospects in the face of a folding defence that seemed to be performing nothing so much as a lesson in origami. The Celtic talisman seemed to sense the potential for arrogance even in the opening seconds when he bent a cross against the near post with the outside of his right boot.

His seventh goal of the season required no such imagination. When a clearance by Moilanen was battered back up the pitch by the vast expanse of Varga’s forehead, Hearts’ back four remained static as it sailed over their heads. Larsson had only to gather control of the ball, look up and slip it under the goalkeeper for Celtic’s third.

Inspired perhaps by the return alongside him of Bobo Balde, Varga positively barged his way through this one. When the Slovakian defender had cause to whack his napper at another careering ball, this time in the midst of Hearts’ penalty area just before half-time, there was no doubt as to where it would end up. He was the only one who had risen to reach Thompson’s corner.

Levein, alarmed by the "suicidal" depth with which his team were defending, spared a traumatised Andy Webster the second half, took a deep breath and, as he later put it, wished that he could wind the clock forward.

"If I had asked them to go out and win 5-4, they would have looked at me as if I was stupid," he admitted. Realism returns to Scottish football.

Taken from the Scotsman