Hearts break sloppy Celtic

Simon Buckland
MARTIN O’NEILL last night admitted he had no excuses after a shock 2-0 home defeat by Hearts made it advantage Rangers as the Old Firm duel for the Premierleague title. Two goals in the opening 20 minutes were held to the end by a Hearts team who provided John Robertson, their manager, with an eloquent riposte to the rambling comments earlier this week from Phil Anderton, the club’s new chief executive, undermining his position.

It was a sunny day at Parkhead, but the atmosphere within was dark. Brian Quinn, the Celtic chairman, was jeered when his name was read out to the supporters as he partook in a half-time presentation and appeared to decline the offer of an interview with the stadium announcer. O’Neill has made plain that improvement in Europe will be possible only with increased investment. A shorter-term domestic concern for Celtic’s followers will be that victory for Rangers at Motherwell today would restore the Ibrox side to the top of the table.

“There’s no point in putting up excuses,” said O’Neill, who has now lost three home fixtures in one Premierleague campaign for the first time. “We were beaten because we didn’t do enough to win. We deserved to get beaten and that’s it. It’s a setback, there’s no doubt about it. Having fought so hard in recent weeks to regain the initiative, today was a big setback, but I did say there would be twists and turns. Hearts are always dangerous. They’ve never just come here and rolled over.” It was, however, the first time Hearts had won at Celtic Park since a 3-2 victory in John Barnes’s penultimate game in charge in February 2000.

Robertson went on the offensive at suggestions that Hearts, who meet Celtic again in next week’s Tennent’s Scottish Cup semi-final at Hampden, had merely defended for all they were worth. “People have said that we sat back, but we didn’t sit back. Celtic pushed us back with their quality, but myself and Donald Park [his assistant] believe in attacking football,” he said. “If you’re going to come here and win, you’ve got to put them under pressure yourself. We managed to take two early chances and gave ourselves something to fight for.”

Lee Miller, who opened the scoring for Hearts before creating a second for Mark Burchill, revealed the players were mindful of Robertson’s position having been compromised by Anderton’s loose talk before the game. “There have been a few things said about John, but I’ve got a lot of respect for him, all the players have, and we’re backing him all the way.”

Taken from timesonline.co.uk