HEARTS 1-1 CELTIC

THREE nights in Milan could hardly be described as the Grand Tour, but Celtic would surely have hoped for a more joyous send-off than the one they got from Tynecastle. Far from the good wishes of their hosts, the ringing in the ears of the squad who flew to northern Italy yesterday would be the result of a traumatising experience in the capital.

In a rare case of the biter being bitten, the Scottish champions, so often the inflictors of pain on opponents with impossibly late goals, on this occasion were the victims of Andrius Velicka's penalty-kick equaliser in the second minute of stoppage time. In truth, it was no more or less than either side deserved.

For a fixture usually distinguished by its ferocity, in terms of ambition, aggression and muscle, this latest renewal was marked by a tameness that was close to politeness, even the normally pulsating atmosphere at Hearts' acoustics-friendly ground seemingly invaded by a deadening force. It was a phenomenon that left both Gordon Strachan, the Celtic manager, and Stevie Frail, the Hearts coach, bewildered. Strachan's sense of shock, of course, would be the deeper for that dramatic final twist, his discomfort confirmed by the admission that "it was a draw that felt like a defeat."

"It was a very unusual experience for me here," said Strachan. "You've seen me in past visits here, jumping around the dug-out, Hearts coming at us with long periods of pressure, always something to keep you on your toes. It wasn't like that at all today. It's usually a crunching fixture, with tackles flying in and plenty of incident. This time there was nothing. Hearts had an early chance to take the lead and missed it and after that there wasn't much to get excited about. I expected a backlash after we scored, but again there was nothing. I don't remember feeling as comfortable at Tynecastle. Then, suddenly, they've got a goal from nowhere."

In fact, the home team got their goal from somewhere and the source was not difficult to trace. Gary Caldwell's barge on Ibrahim Tall can only be described as an aberration. The incident occurred after Audrius Ksanavicius came in from the right and hit a powerful, 25-yard drive that would have found the net but for Artur Boruc's exceptional save.

As the ball dropped gently from the sky towards Tall, it seemed extremely unlikely that the big defender, about eight yards out to the left of goal, would be able to put enough pace on the header to send it past Boruc. Caldwell did not bother waiting to test the theory, choosing instead to rush at Tall and take him down. Velicka, the Tynecastle side's leading scorer who had come off the bench to replace the ineffective Christian Nade, converted coolly and expertly, driving the ball low and hard to the right of the goalkeeper.

The manner in which the equaliser came about was entirely appropriate, as Celtic had taken the lead through an opponent's miscalculation, in this instance the Hearts goalkeeper, Anthony Basso.

Paul Hartley's free kick from 25 yards was well enough struck, but seemed unlikely to trouble Basso until the goalkeeper was suddenly seen to have moved to his left to cover the shot too early. As the ball veered to his right, he could do no more than stretch out his hand to prevent it crossing the line, unable to catch it or control the course of its flight after making the block. To the dismay of the Frenchman and every Hearts supporter, the ball fell to Scott McDonald, who volleyed it over the line from six yards.

As a result of the general mediocrity of the play it had seemed that the first scorer would be the winner, an impression that seemed to be shared by the home fans, who would spend the time between then and the equaliser reflecting on the miss by Ksanavicius that denied Hearts the lead after only three minutes.

Laryea Kingston, more successful than anyone else in the matter of producing anything remotely resembling artistry, played the ball inside from the right to Ruben Palazuelos and, instead of taking the more obvious shooting option, the Spaniard cleverly switched it to the unmarked Ksanavicius on the left of the area. The Lithuanian somehow contrived to send his shot wide of the far post.

"Anthony came into the dressing-room and immediately took the blame for Celtic's goal," said Frail. "But it was a strangely quiet match, with not many chances, although I think we had the better of them and a point was the least we deserved. It might have been different if we'd sustained the tempo we started at.

"We know it's important to start well against the Old Firm and we've done that against both of them in recent matches.

"We didn't keep it up today, but you would expect Celtic to come back into it. They're a good team and very strong, both physically and mentally. Actually, I think the late winner they got against Shakhtar in the Champions League on Wednesday was a great help to them.

"I was at that match and, as it got very close to the end, I was thinking that they would be almost certainly out of the tournament and would come to Tynecastle today perhaps a wee bit depressed or even demoralised. The team that arrived was not the one I thought might be here if they hadn't won that midweek match."

Taken from the Scotsman