TRULY A HARD ACT TO FOLLOW
X-rated tackles, a flurry of reds, heroes, villains and bad blunders in a Cup epic that had it all
FOR Dundee United and Celtic, the trilogy becomes a quadrilogy. Already facing each other three ti mes i n three competitions at three different venues across the third month of the year, one final blast of beleaguered r ef eree Craig Thomson’s whistle at Tannadice yesterday ensured yet another instalment of this saga.
In the movie business, each successive film in a franchise tends to be markedly poorer than its predecessor. And as the dust settled on this breathtaking and at times bewildering contest of almost incessant controversy, the suspicion lingered that nothing that lies ahead in March could possibly match this blockbuster for drama, action and utter high farce.
For on an astonishing Scottish Cup afternoon on Tayside, nine-man United fought to a valiant draw against their 10-man visitors.
This was a game scarred by two early red cards, ultimately three in total, but, in truth, there could have been five.
One, dished out to the luckless Paul Paton, was a monumentally unjust case of mistaken identity.
Adding to the scandal, Nadir Ciftci, the United striker who opened the scoring from the spot after team-mate Aidan Connolly appeared to dive to win a penalty, should not have been on the park at all after kicking out at Scott Brown.
The Celtic captain was, himself, lucky to escape red for a quite awful challenge on the Turkish forward in the first place.
And even after all that drama, there was still room to plot in a villain- to- hero story, as Leigh Griffiths missed a penalty then scored an equaliser to break the heart of outstanding United keeper Rado Cierzniak.
Griffiths’ beautiful header secured a replay at Parkhead on March 18 — the second of three games in a week between t he t eams — although the Celtic striker may now relinquish penalty duties.
‘I had the chance to get us back in it with the penalty but he saved i t,’ said Griffiths. ‘ I had been practising i n training all day yesterday and never missed one.
‘I apologised to the fans because I never scored. It was my fault and, if Kris Commons is back in the team next week, he will be back on them because he’s our No 1 penalty taker. But, if not, I will put my hand up to take one because I am always confident.
‘Their goalie has had one of those games. He saved everything we threw at him. I hope he is not in that form in the Final next week or we could be in trouble. But i t was nice that I picked myself up to score.’
The tone for a bizarre afternoon was set on nine minutes when Brown went in hard on Ciftci. He retaliated with a kick towards the Celtic skipper’s head. In the same melee, Cal u m Butcher slid into Virgil van Dijk, who appeared to stamp down on the United man as the pair tangled on the ground. And yet, after a threeminute discussion between referee Thomson and his assistant Graham Chambers, red cards were issued to van Dijk and, astonishingly, the apparently blameless Paton instead of Butcher.
As he trudged off, Paton’s face was the picture of incredulity.
This season he has already been banned for two games for allegedly spitting at Aberdeen’s Jonny Hayes — despite his ‘victim’ protesting that Paton was innocent.
Paton recently insisted he was the victim of unfair treatment from the SFA because he elected to play for Northern Ireland over Scotland. That, of course, remains a nonsense but he was right to feel aggrieved yesterday.
As half-time approached, United nearly took the lead when Butcher’s mis-hit shot was diverted past Craig Gordon by Ryan Dow, but the ball bounced back off the inside of the post and was hacked away to safety.
Then, after a lighting break, Celtic raced up to the other end and great play from Stefan Johansen saw him cleverly slip the ball in for Anthony Stokes. The forward was clean through on goal and took two touches before picking his spot.
Unfortunately for him, however, the spot he chose was the bottomleft post and the ball was cleared by United’s relieved defence. Whether or not the ball took a bobble on the pitch, only Stokes will know, but it looked a real sitter.
Worse was to come for him when Connolly drove at the Celtic defence and appeared to throw himself to the ground with Stokes nearby.
It looked a dive but Ciftci did not care about that as he ruthlessly cracked his spot-kick low and hard beyond the diving Gordon.
As the teams left the park at half-time, Emilio Izaguirre was furious at the award of the penalty. But it was the Honduran’s misplaced clearance into the path of Connolly that had put his team under pressure in the first place.
It was a crazy conclusion to the first half but the second period i mmediately br o ught fresh madness. Within three minutes, Dundee United were down to nine men when Griffiths’ shot struck Paul Dixon on the arm as the United defender attempted to block.
Griffiths caught the ball well but Cierzniak, so often criticised, pulled off a wonderful save to prevent