ONLY CELTIC COME CLOSE
From Back Page happy – and you know me, it takes a lot to make me happy.
“I thought the first half was perfect from us, with that intensity and pace maybe only Celtic could live with us. The scoreline flattered Hearts.
“I think we should have won by more. At 1-0 I said to my players that they might score from a set play, deflection, anything so it’s great to finish the job with a clean sheet.
“I’ve been involved in a lot of derbies, and that is as good as any in terms of feeling. We came through it brilliantly.
“Simon’s goal was a great finish, the two wingers were fantastic and Brandon Barker was incredible. All three midfielders were great. Dylan McGeouch and John McGinn are as good as anyone in the country at the minute.
“And our defence was rock solid, the goalkeeper had a great game.
“More importantly it’s three points, we are back in the top six and the punters are going home happy.
“We forced the game. We pressed them and made them make mistakes. It was a special performance, as good as I’ve seen here.
“There’s a rawness about the derby. I think we played well against Celtic away, Aberdeen here and Celtic in the semi-final. We haven’t been far away in those games so I’m very happy with how things are going.
“We were without Anthony Stokes, Danny Swanson, Darren McGregor and Liam Fontaine so the players out there did the club proud.”
Lennon singled out midfielder McGeouch for special praise saying: “Dylan was unbelievable. The one where he dinked it over someone and played in a great ball was special.
“He breaks the lines brilliantly and that is a talent in itself. “McGeouch’s work rate and physicality have improved. We are now getting the best out of him.
“He seems to be over his injury problems as he had been in and out with hamstring problems. The specialist seems to finally have got to bottom of it and he is now playing wonderful football.”
Meanwhile, Lennon was adamant that Hearts kid Harry Cochrane should have seen red for a cynical late foul on McGinn.
He said: “There was no intention to play the ball, just trying to take John out. It was a cynical, professional foul. There was a lot going on but in the main, the ref had a decent game.”
Hearts boss Craig Levein admitted his side just didn’t play on the night and never got to grips with the contest.
And in contrast to Lennon he felt ref Andrew Dallas got the Cochrane call spot on.
Levein said: “I didn’t think it was a red card. The ref saw it as a booking and that’s what he gave.
“It’s a sore one. I’m disappointed, which you would expect. We turned up with the right attitude – but just didn’t play and that is a disappointment for the players as well.
“I’m pleased with the effort they put in but they didn’t pass the ball well enough and never really got a grip of the game.
“The first half was really poor as we didn’t get going at all. We weren’t being cut open but we just never got the ball moving as we needed to.
“We ended up giving it away, defending, giving it away, defending.
“In the second half we were better. Harry made a difference, when he got on the ball he made passes but we didn’t do enough.
“It is a learning curve. A lot of the players haven’t played in this game before.
‘They’ll know what it’s about for the next time.”