Falling short at Celtic park

Celtic moved ten points clear of Hearts with a goal from James Forrest, two Anthony Stokes strikes and one from substitute Paddy McCourt. The damage is by no means terminal given Hearts' game in hand over the league leaders, but they were overpowered and outrun for much of a one-sided affair in which Celtic excelled and left their opponents at times chasing shadows.

How Hearts must dread visiting Parkhead. In an enthralling league campaign they have hitherto won every away match with the exception of two. Both of those have come at Celtic with a total of seven goals conceded and none scored. Last night's 4-0 reverse followed the 3-0 defeat suffered at Parkhead last September. Like the previous loss, this one was brought about by a combination of poor defending and some clinical Celtic finishing.

With the unbeaten SPL run gone, Hearts manager Jim Jefferies refused to castigate his players in view of their efforts to date this season. But he rightly complained at erratic defending in the second half whilst acknowledging that the hosts had hit top form on the night. "Celtic came out the traps well, got close to us, competed and won most of the balls in the opening ten minutes," said Jefferies. "We were one down to a very good strike. Overall there wasn't a lot of chances at either end. We grew into the game and competed, then we lost a quality goal after half-time. The last 25 minutes was a shambles and we could have lost more than we did. We started to think we were clever, pushing up trying to play offside. Then we lost a horrendous third goal.

"We should have put the ball into row Z at the fourth goal and got punished again. We were sloppy and it's unusual for us. Over the last ten or 12 games we've been so good defensively. But we didn't do our jobs right, tried to be too smart and clever and got punished."

Neil Lennon, the Celtic manager, was understandably delighted at seeing off a potential title challenger with such conviction. He admitted the hype surrounding Hearts of late helped motivate his players. "I thought a lot of talk was about Hearts going into the game.

"There's a lot of negativity about us just now, even after the weekend when we won 1-0. All the talk was about Hearts and we used that as motivation.

"I thought we were absolutely tremendous from start to finish. We had some great individual disp lays, played with intensity and looked a really good team. There was a real hunger after the last game at Tynecastle (which Celtic lost 2-0). The players did everything we asked. I thought Scott Brown was awesome. Certain journalists seem to have it in for him but he was fantastic. Charlie Mulgrew and Mark Wilson also.

"I think this result has been coming because our level of play in recent weeks has been very good, we just haven't been putting teams away. It came together last night. We took our chances when they came and it could have been even more. Hooper was a constant thorn in their side and Stokes was a constant menace."

That said, it took Celtic's strikers a while to properly get going. A full 45 minutes to be exact. When they kicked in they capitalised on Hearts' decision to play a high defensive line in the hope of catching their opponents offside.

Celtic opened strongly and scored in only the seventh minute. Brown supplied Forrest with the ball in space on the left, and he took full advantage by moving outside the approaching Eggert Jonsson and crashing a shot high into the net. Forrest was then withdrawn clutching his hamstring and Celtic lost a portion of their attacking pace out wide.

Hearts threatened on 27 minutes when Zaliukas' pass from defence was nonchalantly flicked into the path of Stephen Elliott by Ryan Stevenson. The striker scarpered off towards goal but his left-footed attempt angled away from the far post.

The visitors, in truth, toiled to make regular attacking progress as Celtic harried them at every opportunity, leading to a niggly undercurrent between the two sets of players.

Eight minutes from the interval a one-two between Ian Black, reinstated in place of Ruben Palazuelos in the Hearts midfield, and Rudi Skacel created an opening for Lee Wallace on the left flank. The full-back advanced into space however his low cross evaded all three maroon shirts inside the penalty area.

On the stroke of the interval, Skacel struck a volley which was held comfortably by the Celtic goalkeeper Fraser Forster. The Czech midfielder was replaced by Palazuelos at the interval to prevent him being sent off as he had been involved in much of the first-half acrimony and been cautioned for his troubles.

"We had to do that," said Jefferies. "You get a reaction here and Rudi was well fired up. Some of his tackles he wasn't justified being spoken to but others were and he got booked. After the third one it looked like he'd be off with the next one.

Even if it was an innocent foul he could be off and he accepted that so we took him off at half-time."

Hearts were still very much in this game facing only a one-goal deficit but, without the injured Kevin Kyle and with Stephen Elliott deployed a s a lone striker, they struggled to impose themselves. They got out of jail somewhat only seconds after the restart when Marian Kello parried Gary Hooper's shot after the striker collected Charlie Mulgrew's long ball in behind the static visiting defence.

Five minutes later Celtic did double their advantage. Ismael Bouzid was penalised for tugging Emilio Izaguirre's shirt on the edge of the Hearts penalty area and Kello positioned his wall to cover the right of his goal. As he stood to the left, all that was required was for Stokes to curve the free-kick over the wall and out of the Slovakian's reach, which he did with aplomb.

The aforementioned undercurrent rose sharply to the surface on 55 minutes as tempers boiled over on the field, sparked by Ian Black's late challenge on McCourt. Brown, never one to shy away from controversy, charged across to confront Black, Zaliukas then waded in and quickly a free-for-all developed for a few seconds until the officials restored order.

After Black, Zaliukas, Brown and Stokes were all booked, Hooper wasted a glorious chance to kill the game completely as he shot high with no marker in attendance just eight yards from goal.

Hearts pressed forward in an effort to regain a foothold in the match but were susceptible to the counter-attack. A Beram Kayal through ball caught the visiting defence square and released Hooper to face Kello one on one. The striker tried to round the goalkeeper and fell only for Stokes to tap into an empty net. In the technical area, Jefferies was furious.

"We were trying to say to the defence that they were trying to play offside and weren't doing it very well," he explained afterwards. "The Celtic lads are good players and we gave them far too much space in behind. We got away with it at times but at the third goal you could have got a double decker bus in between our centre-halves. It's most unlike us when you look at our goals against column in the last ten games or so. We could have been punished more."

Ten minutes from time came the fourth. Stokes' fresh-air swipe at Hooper's low cross allowed McCourt an opportunity to shoot, and he made no mistake with a first-time finish. For Hearts, the misery was complete at a venue they will be in no hurry to re-visit.

Taken from the Scotsman