CELTS MAKE IT LOOK SO EASY
Tynecastle thrashing ties up six-in-a-row as Rodgers revels in his first title success
IT would be easy for Celtic to treat six-in-a-row with an air of indifference. To take days like these for granted and presume they’ll carry on forever. Easy, but mistaken.
Brendan Rodgers dedicated his first major title as a manager to coaching mentor Tommy Burns, the Parkhead boss between 1994 and 1997. An iconic figure around the club, one Scottish league title proved beyond Burns, let alone six. Winning the top division may be less of a stretch than it once was. But it’s still not as easy as people think.
‘It’s a huge privilege for me,’ said Rodgers. ‘I went very close (to winning a league) a couple of years ago with my Liverpool team.
‘There was disappointment when it didn’t happen, but I couldn’t think of a better club to win my first league title with than the club I’ve supported all of my life.’
Celtic’s sixth successive league flag — 48th in all — was clinched after their biggest Tynecastle victory over Hearts in the league since 1890, a Scott Sinclair hat-trick adding gloss to a procession.
With eight games still to play, the achievement will be dismissed south of the border as an irrelevance. Scottish football, shorn of broadcasting riches, is resigned now to the insults and ignorance.
Yet Celtic have made it to six-in-a-row just twice in 129 years. Willie Maley’s iconic team of Jimmy Quinn and Jimmy McMenemy did it in 1910, their record untouched until the final swansong for Jock Stein’s Lisbon Lions in 1971.
Only Walter Smith’s Rangers have done it since and Rodgers and his team join illustrious company. An elite club unlikely to admit any new members for quite some time.
Box ticked, there are new targets for Celtic to aim for now. Victory over Rangers in this month’s Scottish Cup semi-final would bring a fourth domestic Treble tantalisingly close.
Beyond that ten-in-a-row already occupies the minds of supporters, if not Rodgers. A distant ideal for so long, it feels plausible now. For Scottish rivals it’s hardly a prospect to savour. Yet for all the derision surrounding the Scottish Premiership and a one-horse race, only the petty should begrudge Celtic their achievements this season.
This is a team which has not only raised the bar, but snapped it in half. Unbeaten in 37 domestic matches this season, there is no guarantee that will change before the Scottish Cup final on May 27.
‘We know what else we want to achieve before the end of the season and we are going to fight like hell to do it,’ added Rodgers.
He was loathe to make it all about him. The transformation in Celtic since his arrival can’t be denied, but there was never any prospect of a Jose Mourinho race down the Tynecastle touchline in celebration.
‘Is it my biggest achievement? Not really, no. I’m not trying to downplay it, but I’ve always said that titles and everything are great, but I look at the influence,’ added Rodgers. ‘If you are expecting me to be sliding on my knees, I’ve got to dry-clean this suit! I’m not one for that.
‘I am happy, of course. I am very proud but, at 5-0, I was kicking the dugout.
‘So I’ve just an in-built thing in my mind for perfection.
‘I know that can’t happen in football, but I’m really happy. I’ve always tried to keep my emotions intact.’
Sinclair’s signing has proven a masterstroke. The winger’s glorious hat-trick yesterday took his tally for the season to 21. For Hearts, a game which began with promise and tempo ended a dispiriting affair and their biggest home loss in the league since 1973.
They have played worse in the course of winning only one of their last eight games. For 24 minutes, they created the better chances. They had five first-half attempts on target, the visitors had two. Yet by the final whistle, their own mistakes were more telling than Celtic’s.
Two of their early openings fell to Esmael Goncalves and were saved by Craig Gordon. With Sinclair in a maroon shirt, the home team would have been two ahead. With Goncalves, a decent signing by and large, they managed none. Back at the venue where he scored his first Celtic goal on August 7, Sinclair has provided outstanding value for an outlay of £3.5million. The winger will take some beating when it comes to deciding which Celtic stars pick up the various player of the year accolades.
His first was a peach. A deft onetwo with Patrick Roberts produced a cushioned first touch 16 yards from goal before he capitalised on ponderous defending from Krystian Nowak to lash a ferocious strike high into the roof of the net.
It came from nowhere. Insult added to Hearts three minutes later when the same pair combined for a clinical second.
Roberts will leave Celtic to return to parent club Manchester City after the Scottish Cup final. Days like this show why the English Premier League club shelled out £12million in the first place. A piece of superb footwork in the centre circle provided the space for the winger to pick his perfectlyweighted pass, Sinclair haring through on goal before picking his spot past a static Jack Hamilton.
From a promising start to the game, Hearts were now beaten.
The home team became slack at the back as they chased an early goal in the second half.
Celtic thought they had a third on 51 minutes when Callum McGregor sent James Forrest clear on the right, a low cross deflecting off Anastasios Avlonitis for an apparent own goal. That a shot can come off a defender and still be deemed offside against Sinclair will bring some debate over the interpretation of the rules.
Either way Celtic didn’t dwell long on the setback.
Stuart Armstrong, another likely to feature on a few player of the year shortlists, put the issue beyond doubt in 55 minutes, a fizzing low strike finding the bottom corner of the net from the edge of the area past a sprawling Hamilton for 3-0.
It went to 4-0 in 61 minutes with a deserved goal for Roberts. A sublime effort it was, too, Nowak’s loose pass allowing McGregor to find the winger with a through ball. There was work to do yet, Roberts teasing Lennard Sowah before curling an outstanding leftfoot strike into the postage-stamp corner with his left foot.
It was apt that Sinclair had the final say, fouled by Nowak on 84 minutes before dispatching the penalty for his hat-trick.
‘He’s a top-class player,’ said Rodgers. ‘I knew Scotty inside out, so I knew what he could bring.’