The Great Escape

CELTIC 2-2 HEARTS

PAUL FORSYTH AT CELTIC PARK

CELTIC’s unbeaten league record remains intact, but it was shaken almost to its foundations yesterday. In another demonstration of the team’s remarkable ability to overcome the odds, they scored twice in the last seven minutes of an astonishing encounter in Glasgow to salvage a draw that looked well beyond them.

Hearts seemed destined to become the first Scottish team to win at Celtic Park since May of 2001 when substitute Mark De Vries put them two ahead with 13 minutes left. Had the Dutch striker not missed a sitter in injury time, after Celtic had pulled one back, they would have done just that.

As it was, Celtic escaped. Chris Sutton had given them hope in the 88th minute when, at the second attempt, he slung the ball over goalkeeper Craig Gordon. And then, amazingly, Didier Agathe found an equaliser deep into injury time. Alan Thompson’s cross was flicked on by Stan Varga, allowing the wing-back to slide in and push it over the line.

It certainly wasn’t the kind of preparation they had in mind for this week’s UEFA Cup quarter-final against Villarreal, but it is now 76 matches they have negotiated at home without defeat. It required a hell of a match to put the John Kennedy injury to the back of Celtic’s minds and, after a non-event of a first half for the home side, they produced.

No Scottish side turns up in the east end of Glasgow these days without a degree of trepidation, but Hearts could at least temper it with the memory of last April. They have been no more successful than anyone else in derailing Celtic’s bandwagon this season, but every time they try, they do so in the knowledge that they were the last team to inflict defeat on Martin O’Neill’s almost infallible side.

Hearts’ cause was not helped by a spate of injuries that denied them Andy Webster, Phil Stamp and Robert Sloan, as well as the recovering De Vries, who had to content himself with a place on the bench at first. They demonstrated their adaptability by playing Kevin McKenna up front and Scott Severin in defence, but the team sheet’s inclusion of Jean Louis Valois, who left the club nearly four months ago, was a misleading measure of their desperation.

On their brand new pitch, a lush expanse of emerald made greasy by a pre-match downpour, Celtic were slow to find their feet. With Kennedy’s absence reducing the options in defence, young Stephen McManus was pressed into service at left-back, and their uncertainty was conspicuous early on.

Only a couple of minutes had gone when little Graham Weir scampered clear of their offside trap and pulled a low shot wide of the post.

Celtic, who asked Paul Lambert to deputise for Neil Lennon in midfield, struggled to come to grips with their opponents. Crosses floated into the box by McManus invited no threat, and even when more reliable sources such as Alan Thompson attempted something more incisive, the final ball was lacking. Larsson, in particular, seemed to have lost his touch.

Only a flap by Craig Gordon, the other Scottish goalkeeping prodigy on display here, encouraged Celtic in an otherwise hopeless first half for the home side. Although Agathe tried to take advantage with a yanked shot towards the empty net, Gordon had recovered enough composure to throw himself at the moving ball.

Hearts, though, were already in front by then, McKenna proving that there is more to his game than physical presence. When Paul Hartley’s shot came back off a defender on the six-yard line, the big Canadian needed no time to steady himself before jabbing an instinctive volley into the bottom left-hand corner.

Had it not been for another notable intervention by that man David Marshall, McKenna might have been striding off at half-time with two goals to his name. The interval had been just a couple of minutes away when, after clambering high above the defence, he fastened on to his own header and poked the ball through Celtic’s startled defence. The goalkeeper scrambled across to turn it round his left-hand post.

McKenna, and indeed Hearts, had riled Celtic enough to ensure that the second half would be altogether more irritable than its predecessor. He and Jackie McNamara were booked for squaring up to each other on the halfway line, and the Canadian must have been seeing stars when Bobo Balde later clattered into him. Gordon upset Larsson with an unnecessary shove in the back, and Sta n Varga was claiming a penalty for Steven Pressley’s challenge.

As the prospect of an end to their long unbeaten record grew in likelihood, so did Celtic’s determination to do something about it, and the crowd knew it. A match that had not been taken seriously enough by the home side suddenly was of grave importance. McNamara was pushed into the midfield as O’Neill went with three at the back, while Stilian Petrov and Liam Miller came on after an hour in a double substitution.

Still they struggled, however. Despite their growing command of the ball, nothing damaging was done with it, and certainly nothing so threatening as Neil Janczyk managed. The Hearts midfielder could have put his team two ahead when he skipped past a defender and, from an acute angle, smashed his shot off Marshall’s body.

Even when Celtic did dispense with their over-elaboration and find a way into the six-yard box, they were found wanting. Balde missed an open goal with his header over the top, Miller’s shot was just wide of the upright and you knew there was something amiss when Larsson turned Sutton’s cutback over the top.

Then came the blow that should have been decisive. De Vries, who had replaced McKenna with 17 minutes left, picked up a pass from Weir, sidestepped Balde and hit a low left-foot shot into the bottom corner. How the Dutchman must regret not repeating that accuracy in injury time, when he sliced wide a Hartley cross with no-one around him.

Taken from the Scotsman