A lack of cutting edge cost Celtic dearly as a Hearts smash and grab sent them into the Scottish Cup final after spending most of the game under the cosh. A controversial last minute penalty by Craig Beattie put Hearts through after an equally controversial equaliser from Celtic four minutes from time.
Celtic completely dominated the first half but had nothing up front to exploit their possession or territorial advantage. Hearts best opportunity of the game came within the opening seconds when Kelvin Wilson was carless with a back pass which was collected by Elliot but Fraser Forster came to the rescue.
Celtic then took over and bossed Hearts comprehensively but could not find a way to open the Hearts defence. Lustig headed over from Kris Commons free kick after the full back was fouled. Midway through the half Commons and Samaras combined to release Mulgrew who crossed from the win for Hooper who should have scored with his header from 8 yards but could not find the target.
Commons nipped onto a short back pass 10 minutes from half time but his touch to take the ball behind goalkeeper Jamie MacDonald was too heavy. Commons had Celtic’s first attempt on target five minutes from the break with a shot from 23 yards but MacDonald saved comfortably.
Ki had two incredible chances in the game, both unmarked back post headers at the end of each half. With 44 minutes gone he struck the upright from 4 yards when he should have scored, an outcome that would be repeated towards the end of the game.
Craig Beattie was introduced at half time and immediately changed the pattern of the game. Two minutes into the second half he played-in Rudi Skacel, benefitting from a ricochet off Kelvin Wilson. Skacel rounded Fraser Forster and shot high into the net.
The goal seemed to break Celtic’s spirit as Hearts created several chances in the opening 20 minutes of the second half. Skacel shot from 35 yards, forcing Forster into a good save. The same player then shot wide after a knock down from Beattie.
Andy Driver dispossessed Michael Lustig just after the hour but Glenn Loovens came to the rescue and conceded a corner. Craig Beattie then played a one-two with Driver before shooting narrowly wide.
Neil Lennon changed Celtic’s shape in an attempt to get back into the game, replacing Samaras with Anthony Stokes and Celtic were soon back in the ascendency. Hooper linked with Stokes on 66 minutes but the Irishman’s shot was deflected wide.
Stokes then headed over from a Ledley cross and had an attempt from 13 yards after Mulgrew cut back to him.
On 82 minutes Ki should have levelled after Kris Commons chipped a free kick towards the back post by the Korean midfielder headed against the post again.
Anthony Stokes should have equalised with five minutes remaining when he got onto the end of a Mulgrew header but he could not turn the ball goal-wards.
A minute later Dylan McGeogh fed Joe Ledley who moved the ball onto Charlie Mulgrew. Mulgrew crossed for Gary Hooper who headed home from 4 yards but the Celtic striker was in an offside position when the cross was played.
In the 90th minute referee Euan Norris awarded Hearts a penalty kick when the ball struck Joe Ledley’s arm when struck from less than 2 yards from him while he was trying to turn his back on the ball to block. Ledley’s arm was not at his side but it was not in an unnatural position either, nor was there even the remotest suggestion of a deliberate act. Beattie struck the penalty straight down the middle as Forster dived to his left.
The last few frantic moments of the game offered further opportunities for Celtic. A Ledley volley was saved before the ball struck Andy Webster inside the Hearts box but the referee wasn’t interested on this occasion.
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deflated
Referee told ledley he gave penalty for deliberate handball against Wanyama.
FFS
ball did not touch wanyama
HH
Mike
Reilly don’t think it was a penalty, think it was a mistake from the ref (I still fall into the camp that believes genuine mistakes are possible). Our goal was offside though; another mistake..
RobertTressell on 15 April, 2012 at 16:27 said:
ESPN has been poor.However,i thought that their coverage of the game last week was outstanding,the best that i have seen from any channel in a long time.
Craig Beattie’s celebration was a disgrace. 2 minutes added, 2 yellow cards (at least) should have been the outcome(removing shirt, leaving field, time-wasting).
If he had celebrated like that against the huns, they would have been on the pitch.
Might be sour grapes, but it was hard to take given the nature of the award, and that he used to wear the hoops.
Just back from the game- we played well enough to dominate hearts for most of the game- but lacked a cutting edge- several clear chances missed against a team who seemed happy to sit back in the first half and hit on the break. Hearts scored with their first attack of the second half and we got nervous for ten minutes or so meaning they could have had a second. The change in shape put us back in command though we were up against a referee who had no intention of giving anything serious against hearts (Black sending off and penalty) while chomping at the bit to give something against us. The game didnt tell us anything we didnt already know the forwards are off form and the MIBs are thriving
Estadio Nacional on 15 April, 2012 at 16:28
Uh oh… jokes on TKV
Kelvin Wilson ~ if he’s the answer, what’s the QUESTION?
A pauper’s Rio Ferdinand. Makes the auld bombscares look like Beckenbauer.
The ref had a great game today,was outstanding.If you are a dirty cheating hun member of the sfa he done you proud that is.we were really poor today but we got ourselves back into the game on our own merits,we shouldn’t have to contend with beating a team who are being assisted by a cheating(who called he with no surname God) b@rsteward.Right at this minute although it’s still raw ,really can’t see what the point of being part of Scottish football anymore,just leave it to them and their like.This TIM has felt cheated once too often
How Celtic performed is irrelevant,the Ref has screwed us royally.
Wether Celtic were good bad or whatever,,the decision at the end is corrupt.
Hail hail
*THE KING VIC 67* 16:33
Not at all, just a bad attempt at humour.
EN
Have to say though that Loovens and Wilson starting together baffled me.
Hail hail
Joe ledley @joe16led Close
“@RubyMayRidgeway: This …. http://pic.twitter.com/9ietdowr” and hows this not a sending off.
mistake or no mistake, these guys like norris and collum should be demoted. fleming should be held accountable for giving these poor refs games. i mean they are getting paid over £1k to ref a match.
Norris aint innocent here, same guy has awarded Rangers 3 pens in a match and denied many an iopposition stonewallers against them
Always like to find a positive angle in these times. So here is my take.
We should have won despite a below par performance. We had great chances and the Mason in Blue cheated us.
Days like today remind not only the support to keep their feet on the ground but lets the board and management team know that we have work to do to complete this team.
Such was my desire not to be grumpy with the wife and weans after the game and to avoid having to talk to anyone I got my cars washed…. would never have happened if Celtic had won!!!!
And when the dust settles an Edinburgh Derby in the final may help persuade at least two clubs that they don’t need rangers and might jar a few thought processes in others. Tin hat time but it actually might be good for Scottish football in the long term.
Crowd of 36,0000 odds at Hampden today about of which maybe 12,000 were Hearts supporters.
Where did our 20’000 other season ticket holders disappear too
I bet if we were fortunate enough to have negotiated our way to the final we would have the usual suspects on shouting about how we should have the lions share of the tickets
Poor showing from the stay at home supporters today
Every game Celtic play is a BIG game.
Every point we won on the way to winning the League was a BIG point.
We have won the BIG prize this season.
OK, we are not the finished article, but we will trim the squad and bring in a couple of BIG players this summer.
We will be playing with the BIG boys next year.
Disappointed as anyone today, partly because the season is finished and mostly because there is a sense of injustice about today and other recent events.
However, in the coming weeks and months there will be BIG things happening in Scottish football off the field of play.
Today, the powers-that-be managed to do us a bit of damage.
However, that’s all they can hope for: their days are numbered and they know it.
Their BIG comeuppance is in the post.
Gardez La Foi
MSM trying to add balance with Hoopers goal.
Well what about Hearts opener then? Driver was offside & dummied the ball before Skacel ran on to it.
Also Black should have been sent off for a scandalous challenge. Ref saw it yellow card, He then should have been given a second yellow for deliberate hand ball.
We may not have been at our clinical best today but I thought we moved the ball pretty well at times. However sometimes you have to hold your hands up & say we were beaten by the better side. Today though was not one of those days. Today we were beaten by a bent referee it was never a penalty in a million years. Cheats!
I would love to be able to say stick your league championship trophy up your rectum & resign from the league.
Joe Ledley tweeted pic of blacks assault on him. Disgraceful challenge.
Yeah ki should have scored 2 goals and kelvin Wilson will never be a good CH.We hand loads of possession and hearts got all their players behind the ball. They got lucky at first goal when mulgrew was playing their player off side only for kelvin to deflect it into space for skacel to score.But how many other great plays and moves did hearts make ? Not 1 that stands out.
Hearts defended like killie did at Hampden .And yet a few on here say we where poor and should not need a penalty to beat hearts ?
So what about the same rules then?
But hearts needed a controversial penalty to beat us in the 90 min.
We will start with the facts then.
So joe Ledley played hand to ball then stopping a goal scoring chance therefore penalty only in Scotland and with an sfa ref.
Joe turned away from shot and hearts player shot ball up into the body and even if it had not hit joes hand it would not have even been on target or going to a hearts player near by.
The Celtic penalty decision ball shot towards goal with hooper in line to recieve ball and Websters hand stops the ball from reaching hooper .
If the same rules where applied then both were penalties .
IMHO both were borderline decision and if 1 had been given then both should have been given but this is Scotland 2012 and it all depends on the man in the middle being fair and honest.
But to them hear some of the sh@te regards we were not goog enough today is an utter joke.Go back and watch the black hand ball and look at the ref and linesman looking at a blatant hand ball.
The mibbery and the blatant breaking of the rules by the Huns and then the new rules will to shoe horn them back into the spl.
Now how many times have we been cheated over the last 20+ years ?
That feckin many times it has become normal and easy to blame a poor performance by the team.Then a few others start laying into Neil when he makes a protest about the decisions and say its not what is expected by a Celtic manager.Some fans might want to take a few more on the chin and continue to sit at the back of the bus !
Not this feckin bhoy, I will be right up the front with Neil outing the cheats and their corrupt stinking set up .
Ftsfa ,Ftspl and no to newco
Jam67
When Black was booked for the tackle on Joe, look again, he deliberatly tried to do him, Jeu’s leg was planted and Black caught him square on the shin, it was a red card all day long in any other league, if it had been the other way around we would have been shown a red.
Them he has a deliberate hand ball, no card.
And some still don’t see that we are being systematicly cheated.
Carry on, blame Lenny and the players.
I have pointed time and time again about this, how do you expect the players to react when they know they are being cheated, they are at Celtic cos the were cheap, or free, or on loan, they are not superstars.
But you part time Tim’s carry on slagging them off, shows you up for what you really are.
Big Jock, Big Billy said we have to be better ti take the cheats out of the equation, aye cheated for years and still you blame our players and coaches.
Dearie, dearie me.
Noticed that the ref didn’t have a view of it as he’s trying to look round a couple of players.It’s also an up and under rather than a shot at goal.
https://twitter.com/#!/RubyMayRidgeway/status/191549799282122752/photo/1
Joe Ledleys leg
Sixteen roads to Golgotha on 15 April, 2012 at 16:32 said:
RobertTressell on 15 April, 2012 at 16:27 said:
ESPN has been poor.However,i thought that their coverage of the game last week was outstanding,the best that i have seen from any channel in a long time.
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It could have been in black and white with subtitles last week and it would have been good!!!!
Championees.
I personally won’t forget Beattie’s celebration. It reminded me of the celebration of that other legend Henrik Larsson when he scored for Barcelona against Glasgow Celtic.
Not.
Craig son you’re a big bare arse and you’ll regret doing that – not in a threatened way – just when you start to feel the cold shoulder – similar to Nicholas – when you realise you’re neither wanted nor liked.
Enjoy your one wee solitary day in the spotlight – magnified because of your opposition not your ability.
Neither forgiven or forgotten.
U
Another big game where we didn’t get the early goal to settle us and we don’t perform.
The back 4 was dodgy looking prior to kick off,during the game it lived up to expectations.
At the back Loovens and Wilson are not a partnership and never will be.
In the middle Ki was his usual neat, tidy and passed the buck. His 2 misses were shocking. Hardly noticed Ledley till the penalty
Up front Hooper and Samaras were like strangers. .
We’re not as good as we think we are from management to the pitch.
The season’s over so now’s the time to give a few youngsters a run. Why bother with Looven, Cha, Wilson etc. Develop the future and forget the fringe player who don’t contribute.
Really disappointed as a month ago we were looking at a treble. Reality check time.
Also time to reflect on a missed opportunity last season with the referees. As bad as ever. If the Hun wit the whistle gives one penalty he has to give both.
Back from a great week in Donegal. Big thank you to thomthethim, his son, Tully57 and Jim. A great day in Sharkey’s.
Although we did not convert our chances, we were cheated today as we were in the League Cup Final..
Time to leave this cesspit of a league.
It has gone beyond the odd sly decision against us. Norris could not wait to give them a penalty when the opportunity arose in injury time.
Árd Macha
Mickyboy1972, Philboy1872 et al……you are a disgrace. Spineless souptakers. You dont even amount to one molecule of Neil’s substance.
Enjoy your day today…..will probably be the last once the cancer of society has been eradicated for good.
You know, it is possible to be play poorly, for players to be off-form, for some odd team selections, and for the ref to be shocking and to feel cheated by the penalty award. For me, all that happened.
ibleedgreenandwhite1 on 15 April, 2012 at 16:35
The ref was poor, no doubt, but the performance is relevant and needs to be discussed
Bloke109 is Neil Lennon on 15 April, 2012 at 16:41
Aye.
Reading comments I think the importance of scoring chances when they occur is seriously underestimated by some commentators assessing performances.
Goals do not only win games they improve performances. Players become more relaxed, passes more crisp as the fear of getting things wrong is lessened by being in front.
Goals scored also have an effect on the confidence of the opposition, especially if it is Celtic they have gone behind to, few make a winning comeback. And even if Celtic are behind a goal scored can also lift heads and change performances.
We lost both cup matches not because performances were bad but because we failed to put away EASY chances at the time they presented themselves.(Oh and incorrect refereeing decisions did not help)
Even if you are not as good as the opposition and score the performance itself does not matter, ask Hearts.
I know poor performances when I see one, first half v St Johnstone was one but we scored when it mattered. That does not mean we performed well. In similar fashion not scoring does not mean we did not perform well, it means we failed to put away easy chances.
I watched Hooper turn up all over the park today, he is a good player but needs another with him who is better, who when he gets the ball has the opposition in bother by dint of speed or strength, it does not matter what the differentiating factor is but he has to have something a bit special and I think we are missing that kind of player to sweep the board and make refereeing errors insignificant..
We did not “fold”, “fail to turn up” or “lack bottle” . These are media myths that some buy into too easily. We failed to put away easy chances and were victim of a wrong decision made at a time that allowed no comeback. The former affected performance, the latter the result.
Bloke109 is Neil Lennon on 15 April, 2012 at 16:41 said:
You know, it is possible to be play poorly, for players to be off-form, for some odd team selections, and for the ref to be shocking and to feel cheated by the penalty award. For me, all that happened.
=====================================
Don’t come on here after a defeat talking reason and common sense………..
Mickeybhoy@ 16.13
I left Kilmarnock last week on the final whistle and did not get involved in the celebrations I am glad I did now because as far as I am concerned this years league title ,without the other two trophies ,is now worthless and I am afraid Mr Lennon is to blame and no one else
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You must be a hun- right- will your Glasgow Derby next season be against Partick Thistle or Queens Park?
Having ‘bhoy’ in the username doesn’t mean what it implies in every case
Bloke109, agreed, sensible stuff.
Anyone got links for the highlights?
thought we were terrible today, ki should have scored 1 of those headers at least (2nd 1 was harder to miss than score!) very impressed by lustig, looks like another good find from our scouts his crosses were really good today. Can’t believe the referee gave that penalty…. looks like another game we were never going to be allowed to win. Hooper was crap Sammi was okay Wilson was terrible. Wanyama and Ledley both played well (Wanyama should have been on from the start). What’s wrong with Paddy McCourt? I’m still not sure about Neil Lennon (haven’t been since Ross County) the treble was there for the taking but we blew it…
HH
Stokesy tweets – ridiculous decisions, beyond a joke