HIGH FIVE AS CELTIC TROUNCE LEAGUE LEADERS HEARTS
THE heavy rain that fell in Scotland yesterday led to bonfire nights being postponed up and down the country. This meeting between the first and s econd- placed t eams in t he Ladbrokes Premiership also failed to ignite. The top-of-the-table encounter in Parkhead turned out to be more of a damp squib than any doused firecracker in the east end of Glasgow.
The Hearts team that travelled down the M8 yesterday has lost much, if not all, of its sparkle due to the injuries that Christophe Berra, Uche Ikpeazu, Steven Naismith and John Souttar have suffered since the start of the season.
They failed to reproduce anything like the display that had helped them beat the defending Scottish champions 1-0 at Tynecastle in August, go undefeated in their opening seven fixtures and, at one stage, build up a six-point lead.
Craig Levein blamed himself for the heavy defeat. He felt that telling his men, who were playing their fifth match in a fortnight, to try and soak up pressure and hit their rivals on the counter-attack had played into the hands of their hosts.
“The manager’s an idiot,” was his opening remark to the media afterwards.
“I thought of all the high-profile games we’ve played and I thought our energy levels were starting to wane,” he added. “I made a decision to sit in. I got that one wrong, eh?”
Levein, though, did himself a disservice. It was the strength of the personnel he had at his disposal and the class of player his opposite number Brendan Rodgers was able to call on, not his change of tactics, which were the real reason for the reverse.
Hearts are now just a point ahead of Celtic, who have a game in hand, and it is, with that aforementioned quartet missing and the way their nearest challengers are currently performing, very difficult to see the Tynecastle side protecting it in the coming weeks.
The double-treble winners have overcome their patchy early-season form. They have now won their last five league games – netting no fewer than 21 goals in the process and letting in just two – and will surely leapfrog their capital rivals in the near future if they maintain their impressive run.
“It has been much more like us,” said Rodgers afterwards. “We have made a few changes tactically which have helped the positioning of the team. In the first half we came up against a team that had 11 men in the final third. But we always looked like we could break through with the speed of the pass and the quality. It was a joy to watch.”
Odsonne Edouard gave the home team the lead in the 18th minute when he received the ball from Scott Sinclair, stepped outside Peter Haring and rifled a ferocious shot into the net off the underside of the crossbar.
Celtic forged further in front eight minutes later when Filip Benkovic slipped his marker, Jimmy Dunne, at a Callum McGregor corner. The on- loan Leicester City man rose unchallenged and headed past Zdenek Zlamal in the Hearts goal. It was the Croatian centre-half’s first goal for the club he joined temporarily from the Foxes in the summer.
Edouard bagged his second six minutes before half time after Kieran Tierney curled a cross into the Hearts six-yard box. Neither Dunne nor Zlamal dealt with it and the French striker prodded home from close range.
“Odsonne really showed his quality today in everything he did – his movement, his touch, his passing, his goals,” said Rodgers of the player he made a record signing of at the start of the season when the Parkhead club shelled out £9 million for his services. “He was brilliant for a young kid. For me, since he has come in he has been exceptional.”
With the victory assured, Rodgers took off Mikael Lustig and put on Kristoffer Ajer at right-back in the 58th minute. The Europa League meeting with RB Leipzig on Thursday night will be far more exacting