LAFFERTY SPEECHLESS AFTER THIS MEMORABLE TRIUMPH
suggested Hearts would have more defending to do. Yet Celtic were now shapeless and throwing caution to the wind in vain.
The arrival of another 16-year-old in the form of highly-rated midfielder Anthony McDonald heightened the visitors’ discomfort.
An unbeaten domestic run stretching back to May 2016 was about to go to a rejuvenated Hearts side featuring two teenagers not old enough to drink the post-match champagne gifted to Cochrane as man of the match.
For Celtic, the tin lid proved the concession of a needless penalty 14 minutes from time. Gordon didn’t need to pull down Callachan— the midfielder had gone too wide to get a shot in — but he did anyway and Milinkovic capped his own best game for Hearts with his second goal from the spot.
‘I ran my throat into the ground shouting at him,’ said Levein after. ‘David is a fantastic player and a lovely boy, but his head’s in the clouds sometimes. His positional sense at times was lacking.
‘I’m hoping we’re on the road to improvement. But it’s football, eh, who knows what happens next?’
NEVER usually the silent type when an earcatching quote can be offered, Kyle Lafferty was left temporarily dumbstruck. It was that kind of afternoon at Tynecastle. One that scrambled the senses after exploding all expectations.
The Hearts striker had been magnificent in leading an all-out assault upon Celtic’s 69-game unbeaten record. Scorer of the second goal with a finish of laser-guided precision, he persistently created problems for Dedryck Boyata and Jozo Simunovic. This was the definition of a big-game player responding to a high-profile occasion.
Lafferty knew something was starting to stir at Hearts. Five previous games unbeaten in front of their new £12million stand offered evidence that Craig Levein’s methods were bearing fruit.
But this? A 4-0 hammering of the team who had swept all before them in Scotland over the past 19 months? Even Lafferty couldn’t quite get his head around it.
‘I’m speechless to be honest,’ he grinned. ‘I’ve always said everything will click, we will gel together and smash a team. If someone was to tell me that team would be Celtic, I’d have laughed in their face.
‘The best thing about this is to have finished the game with three Under-20 players on the field (Harry Cochrane, Anthony McDonald and Jamie Brandon) and we are led by Christophe Berra, who came through the academy.
‘It just shows what this club is all about and what this performance means to everyone.
‘I have been lucky enough to have been on a winning side a few times against Celtic but this win is right up there as one of the best. To be in the team that stopped them from going 70 games without defeat is one of the best feelings I’ve been involved in.’
Those past successes came in the colours of Rangers, during the days when they looked their Old Firm rivals squarely in the eye. Since Brendan Rodgers arrived at Celtic, however, the Champions League had been the only arena in which a result like this one had seemed possible.
Lafferty revealed those European difficulties had been the inspiration for the high press adopted by Hearts. It left the Parkhead defence disorientated within a maroon mist. And Lafferty detected their unease from the start.
‘We watched clips of Celtic against Anderlecht and how they pressed them and kept them on the back foot,’ he said.
‘We spoke the whole week about trying to put them under pressure from the first minute until the last and that’s what we did. I think they struggle when players get into their faces. Celtic are a team who if you show respect, the result could have been 4-0 to them.
‘We believe in ourselves and the manager showed belief with the way he set up the team. I sensed in the first five minutes Celtic weren’t up for the game. We have played at Tynecastle on colder nights and ground out results and we knew we needed that kind of performance.
‘Before the game, the manager told us to be the team that stopped Celtic from going 70 games in a row.
‘Simple as that. He didn’t say much, he believes in the team and in every player.
‘He said before the match that we would be the team to stop Celtic and we took that on to the pitch and beat them 4-0.’
Cochrane — Hearts’ prodigiously talented 16-year-old midfielder — got the ball rolling with a crisply-taken opener, before a second-half double from David Milinkovic banished any thought of a Celtic comeback.
You could argue Lafferty’s goal was the most important of them all. For sure, the way the Northern Ireland forward spearheaded Hearts spread nervousness through Boyata and Simunovic.
‘In the first game of the season, I didn’t fancy them as two centre-halves,’ said Lafferty, reflecting on a 4-1 defeat at Celtic Park in August. ‘Obviously, they are great centre-halves, but I knew that when you are up against them and put them under pressure there are mistakes in them. I have done that, got a goal and gave other people chances as well.
‘I am happy with my performance but don’t take anything away from every single player on the pitch. From the goalkeeper up to Cole Stockton when he came on, it was a brilliant performance.
‘I know if I am on top of my game I will play any defender off the park. ‘It’s about getting consistency every game. This season has probably been the most consistent I have been involved in.’
He draws further happiness from seeing the progress of Hearts’ homegrown youngsters. Any striker would have been proud of the finish Cochrane produced yesterday. ‘I watched him collecting a bottle of champagne after the game,’ smiled Lafferty. ‘He’s too young to drink it! He couldn’t speak because he is shocked. But that’s Harry. He doesn’t say a lot.
‘When he plays for the younger age groups, you can see that he is 16. But when he plays in the first team, he steps up five or six years.
‘He is a brilliant young player. I spoke to him before the game and said this is where you have to make a name for yourself. What a way to do it.
‘He is probably one of the best young players I have seen. When I came into Hearts, he was training with the first team. He got an injury at the start of the season but worked hard and was in the gym. To be honest, I think he forgot to put the weights on the bars!
‘No, he is going to be an exceptional player. Hearts have developed a few amazing young players, even when I was at Rangers I saw it. Harry is going to be up there. If Hearts can keep hold of him for a long time, they will do well.’
For Lafferty, this has also been a season containing an important personal confession. In September, he went public about his long-standing gambling addiction.
‘I’m at a good club that has shown me respect and helped me through tough times in my personal life,’ he added. ‘To come away with a goal and three points against Celtic is a great way to say thank you.’