Ten-man Celtic miss chance to go top as Grant and Shankland earn Hearts win
Hearts profited from Yang Hyun-jun’s early red card to inflict a second 2-0 defeat on title-chasing Celtic within the space of three months in an incidentpacked cinch Premiership encounter at Tynecastle.
The visitors arrived in Edinburgh knowing a victory would have taken them back to the top of the league after Rangers suffered a surprise 2-1 loss at home to Motherwell on Saturday. But their hopes of achieving this feat were badly undermined during a dramatic opening quarter of an hour in which Adam Idah had a penalty saved by Zander Clark and then Yang saw red for a dangerously high challenge on Alex Cochrane.
Hearts – who defeated Celtic in Glasgow in December – took full advantage of the extra man as Jorge Grant scored a penalty late in the first half before Lawrence Shankland struck his 27th goal of the season on a day when the Scotland manager, Steve Clarke, was watching on. The victory moves the home side 13 points clear in third place.
“My feeling is that the game was decided by the officials, on the field and outside of the field,” said the Celtic manager, Brendan Rodgers.
“The first one is the sending off when there is no force. Show a still image of that and of course you will see a foot up with the head near it, but it’s not the reality of the move. Don Robertson actually got it right on the field. It was a high boot, so it’s a yellow card – no malice or force.
“For John Beaton to actually look at that in VAR, supposedly under no pressure, and say that was a sending off, I find that incredible. The second one (Hearts’ penalty) is worse. If you have a penalty go against you for that then there will be penalties every single weekend and midweek.”
Hearts made a bright start and they had a good chance in the eighth minute when Shankland’s cross from the right picked out Cochrane but the left wingback got his shot all wrong and fluffed it well wide.
The visitors were awarded a penalty in the 11th minute when Cochrane was deemed to have fouled Yang but Idah saw his low spot-kick saved by the legs of Clark. Yang and Cochrane were involved again in the next flashpoint just a few minutes later when the Korean midfielder caught the Englishman in the face with a high foot. The referee, Robertson, booked the Celtic player but then upgraded it to a red card after being advised by the VAR, Beaton, to review the incident on the pitchside monitor.
Despite being a man down, Celtic did have the ball in the net in the 22nd minute when Pablo Bernardo’s shot went in off both posts but the flag went up to cut short the celebrations, with Idah offside in the buildup.
Hearts sensed their chance of victory, however, and Alan Forrest headed over from Dexter Lembikisa cross in the 27th minute before Shankland was denied by a goal-saving challenge from Liam Scales.
Another big call went the way of Hearts in the 40th minute when – following a lengthy VAR review – they were awarded a penalty after the ball came down on to the arm of Tomoki Iwata as he rose amid a cluster of bodies to try to head the ball out of his box. Grant kept his cool to send Joe Hart the wrong way.
Hearts thought they had doubled their lead in first-half stoppage time when Shankland drilled home a low shot from eight yards out after being fed by a Forrest pass but the goal was ruled out for offside after a lengthy VAR review.
Celtic sent on Kyogo Furuhashi in place of Bernardo for the start of the second half but the visitors found themselves two down in the 56th minute when Shankland swept home a clinical low strike from 15 yards out.
Celtic were unable to summon a response and Hearts saw out victory in impressive fashion, sparking jubilant full-time scenes at Tynecastle.
The Hearts manager, Steven Naismith, said: “It was an entertaining game and one I think we deserved to win. There were a lot of action points. Throughout the game at the right times, we played, controlled the game and asked Celtic some questions. I think both penalties are soft.”