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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Tommy Joad on 15 April, 2012 at 17:15 said:
Alan was actually very fair. He was naturally down, but more or less said it was a good game and either they were both penalties or neither was. They were all hurting, but we would be back. Robertson was very bitter though.
Joe Filippis Haircut on 15 April, 2012 at 17:11 said:
correct………….and our team just couldnt do it
It says it all to me when the refs aren’t even required to declare which team they support and go all defensive when the matter is raised. What’s the problem in doing that?
I realise that foreign refs would make blunders too but at least they really would be honest ones.
Was at the match, don’t need to see the penalty decision again to know it was blatant cheating. Someone earlier posted on this blog that there’s not another team in the world that would get that penalty given against them. Sums it up for me. Norris won’t have to put his hand in his pocket at the lodge bar tonight.
He thought Wanyama handled it. Seems fair i cant tell Led & Vic apart eethers!!
Agent Craig “Green and” Whyte!! on 15 April, 2012 at 16:47 said:
Really pleased about your stance and your a real republican martyr in my eyes
Speak to any of the bus conveners today who were left with scores of tickets that already had been paid for .
Do you think the SFA will be reimbursing the CSA or CFC for the missing fans who failed to take up the tickets
I bet 50% of our support who were able to supplement Kilmarnocks coffers last week,and werent at Hampden today,would have managed to get a ticket for the final if we had had got through
Ps when 10 men won the league now there was titles that were worth something
AH LOVE CELTIC
AH HATE FEKIN FITBA
If that clown has come out and claimed he thought it was Vic, there should be some official complaint made to the SFA. Simples.
celt55 on 15 April, 2012 at 17:12 said:
Radio Scotland. After Alan Thompson’s interview ex heart Robertson actually said that Victor Wanyama had dived for the free kick….
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To be fair to Robertson, he is a guy who knows a fair bit about diving!
navanbhoy on 15 April, 2012 at 17:20 said:
Agree we were nowhere near our best 2day but facts remain if rules of the game are applied fairly & evenly to both teams, then hearts do NOT get a penalty that is a fact. I think the club need to by pass corrupt sfa & go straight to UEFA to get something resembling a level playing pitch as we all know it is nowhere near a one off today
//////
Yep, and the matter will be referred to their local experts on Scottish football, David Taylor and Mr Dallas!
What a handball at the Utd Villa game, of course not given.
My dear,dear,dear,friend…The Singing Detective
hiya palomine
It was only recently when the blog was screaming for the removal of just James Forrest, CQN’s greatest ever poster was extolling how important James is to the Celtic team. Kojo’s wisdom is incredible as you well know.
Celtic are missing James badly.
maks sense to us.
Kojak
yer pal.. who likes ye aloater
Joe Filipi’s Haircut,
Of course there was cheating against us in Mr Stein’s day. It is, however, wrong to say that he put a team on the park which was good enough to make the cheating irrelevant. We were cheated out of at least 1 Scottish Cup and plenty of other games. Personally, I think, it is even worse now. The refs know they can indulge their hatred of Celtic and get off scott free (indeed be rewarded). Besides all that, our players are mostly young and inexperienced. Anyway, how do you handle yourself if you’re Joe Ledley and the victim of a horrendous challenge and then given a penalty kick against you? Wouldn’t that discourage you? Celtic should resign from the SPL and tell the SFA they have no further interest in participating in any of their corrupt competitions.
If any of you paid attention you’d realise that Joe Ledley favours a short sleeved top and Victor a long sleeved one. Hence the obvious upset from Celtic fans in Norris’s mistaken identity clanger – surely a good referee would notice this?
Surely…
U
One of Hearts supporters’
banners today.
http://twitter.com/#!/Michael_T89/status/191542518884737024/photo/1
Auld Neil Lennon heid on 15 April, 2012 at 17:12 said:
Auldhied, maybe nobody wants to open the pandoras box that is refereeing integrity if not then it will be never ending circles with every other big decision not going our way, how long can we keep “taking it on the chin”?
Neil will get crucified for his reaction at the final whistle, all he was showing was his raw emotion as a fan, the club need to grasp the mettle here, publicly call them out,, what have we got to lose because it cannot get any worse.
gebhoy
There were many who rejoiced at how WE won the battle of Dallasgate.
There were many who stated that WE had changed how the SFA and refs would treat us.
Today shows you that THEY hate us.That we won a single battle,but over the piece they will get us back.
Jock Stein was right .
The only way to beat them is to be MUCH better than them.
Sadly we are only marginally better than them.
Celtic need to strengthen in the summer.
A Big Strong centre forward who scores goals would be a start.
TT
T
jungle jam67 on 15 April, 2012 at 17:14
JJ , would also love to get out of this rotten league but where are
we supposed to go ?
As for today , it just backs up what we all already know , we are the enemy , the
ref proved that today with those penalty decisions that they will put us down at
every opportunity.
We also need some quality signings in the summer
, we need to bury these teams who turn up to frustrate us , the last two
hampden encounters have shown that.
Felt very uneasy at H T as I knew Beattie was coming on and Wilson was staying on!!
Heed like a ten bob bit!!
The banner is being denied, i’d wait for confirmation before getting pissed off. More worrying is that someone made up a fake banner and posted it online.
Craig Beattie comments will punctuate the blog, quite rightly.
He wasn’t good enough for Celtic, and he proved it today.
Monaghan1900 on 15 April, 2012 at 17:27 said:
One of Hearts supporters’
banners today.
http://twitter.com/#!/Michael_T89/status/191542518884737024/photo/1
——————————————————————————————
That needs to get a wide distribution. Villa boards etc.
Hunbelievable.
The SFA have a contract with the SPL to provide referees to the SPL matches.
No idea what the value of this contract is but at £850 per game for a referee plus linesmans costs etc plus hospitality it must be over £1,000 per game.
Like every contract there must be a time when this is open for renegotiation…..surely it is a restraint of trade that this contract has to be awarded to the SFA?
Monaghan1900 on 15 April, 2012 at 17:27 said:
One of Hearts supporters’
banners today.
my god surely not!
celt55 on 15 April, 2012 at 17:12 said:
“Radio Scotland. After Alan Thompson’s interview ex heart Robertson actually said that Victor Wanyama had dived for the free kick….”
I heard that as well. They just make things up in a ridiculous attempt to present balance. Victor did the boy for skill & it was a free kick all day long.
I wonder how they’ll balance up the despicable banner?
Parkheadcumsalford. I can understand any Celtic player or supporters frustration but I have lived long enough in this corrupt wee country to know it will not change.Big Jocks teams won more than it lost. We have seen Celtic lose against Kilmarnock and today against Hearts if we had taken our chances in both games we would have won comfortabely but we were wastefull do you disagree ? H.H.
Auldheid
No one has the stomach for it, it would seem..
That is the problem, why are the club allowing this to happen ?
Lenny will be the headline again tomorrow, why are the club not shouting about this.
They are allowing him to be slaughtered by the bias media, they are not imo standing up for him in the face of the cheating, why is that I ask myself.
The hatred for Lenny knows no bounds, ask the wee wifie who cares not a jot about football and they will tell you Lenny brings it all on himself, that’s how much they have brainwashed the public.
The death threats, the assaults, the orchestrated campaign against him could and should have been stopped in it’s tracks as soon as it started.
And yet their silence has been deafening.
Have they to murder him ? the media will not be content untill he is either dead on in a mental hospital.
I am disgusted at their treatment of him, but am equally disgusted at the clubs lack of public support for him.
Where in the world does a manager have to be moved in the middle of the night to protect his family ?
It’s shocking, it’s scotland.
We will never be able to prove that Norris is dishonest or corrupt but if RFC(IA) are allowed back into the SPL post liquidation it is concrete proof that the SPL/SFA/RFC are totally corrupt. That’s the line I think we should be taking.
Headtheball
Totally agree!!I’m fed up hearing the, “We didn’t play well so we didn’t deserve to win” nonsense.You can have bad games and still win but you can’t with the type of decisions we had in today’s game and the cup final.
I was at the game, to the right of the centre circle, north stand, near the Hearts support and didn’t see that banner.
simply just not good enough…..
TinyTim on 15 April, 2012 at 17:27 said:
Agree on being good enough to make the MIB irrelevant but unfortunately i think we are a long way away from being that good.
What worries me is that we seam to have an inability to show up in big games, for me its not bottle, was it advisable to give the players most of the week off after last week? We did the same before Inverness last season that cost us dearly.
Poorly prepared i dont know, but there must be some underlying reasons we find it hard to play at our best in one off games at hampden.
gebhoy
Paul67 et al
In a ten year period between 1965 and 1975 Jock Stein’s Celtic team reached around 23 finals, not counting the Glasgow Cup. They did not win all of the finals, but, to state the obvious, they won all the semi-finals. Today we lost a semi-final which we could have won. We could have won it over ninety minutes, and we would almost certainly have won it in extra time, if we had got there. It is called Cup football. The last twenty minutes felt like a final, and although at times I felt we would never score, there was always that hope that we would, and we did. I mentioned after the Kilmarnock final that while not all referees were as bigoted as a McCurry or a Davidson, there would always, always be an opportunity for a referee, any referee, to make a match changing decision. And once again it has come to pass. However we were never in front either in the League Cup final or today, and that is when you hand the initiative to the referee.
The stories going round are that the banner is fake, which is shocking if true. The guys actually at the game will be able to confirm.
This Celtic team need to get a nasty streak in them and quick! Far too passive in these games for my liking, We all know the refs in scotland try and give our opponents every helping hand they can…
WE MUST GET NASTY AND UTTERLY RUTHLESS NOW..
Someone posted earlier that big Jock understood our position with officaldom more than anyone, and he sent his teams out to DESTROY! We wern’t just great on the eye then, we had a ruthless and nasty streak who gave out as much as we got from the hammer throwers..players like Bertie Auld, TG, Ceasar etc etc,…
I’ve come to the conclusion that Lenny should keep telling it like it is. He should do a ‘Craig Whyte’ and treat their summonses with contempt.
Just get a good walkie-talkie Neil. You can see the game better up in the stand anyway.
Is it safe to come on???
The banner is from KDS. Whether it was taken to Hampden today or not, someone wrote it out, photographed it and posted it.