We anticipated a rollercoaster final game of the season, but goodness, no one could have imagined the dramatic a conclusion we got.
Just as they had against Newco six days earlier, then against Motherwell on Wednesday, Celtic conceded the first goal against Hearts and left their title hopes clinging by a thread. Until that goal in the 43rd minute, Hearts offered little more than resistance, as Celtic struggled to create a chance worthy of the name.
Celtic defend corner kicks with a mix of man-to-man; usually concentrating on the tall players who take up prime positions in front of goal, and zonal; flooding the prime spots in front of goal where players are most likely to score from.
Lawrence Shankland made a run to the back post from a low-risk area and with his run, was able to evade Alistair Johnston. When Viljami Sinisalo came for and missed the cross, Shankland was favourite and finished excellently.
With the middle of the park proving impossible to penetrate, Celtic made their crucial breakthrough down the left. Sebastian Tounekti played-in the overlapping Kieran Tierney, whose cross met the arm of the unfortunate Kyziridis. Referee Don Robertson initially pointed for a corner kick, but within a second changed his mind to award the penalty.
Arne Engels will hit better penalties and not convert them. It is a worry for another day that our competence from the spot does not seem nailed down, for now, none of that mattered as Hearts ‘keeper Schwolow dived over the shot. A delicious twist of irony was added to the equaliser, as it occurred in the fourth minute of four added before the interval, after Hearts players twice required play to stop during the first half for physio treatment.
With Celtic’s ‘Get out of Jail’ card played, Martin O’Neill made the first of his big substitution decisions at halftime. Kelechi Iheanacho always improves Celtic when he comes on. Always. He is by far the best player in Scottish football and with Daizen Maeda moving left, Celtic began to dominate proceedings for the first time in the game.
With Hearts clearly flagging and sitting ever-deeper, the goal always looked like coming, however, I got worried when Martin made his second big substitution decision. As he hooked Auston Trusty for Callum Osmand with 17 minutes of the game left, it indicated the manager was making a gamble he was not entirely comfortable with. This was the first time he had gone three at the back at Celtic – since 2005 anyway – and was a formation I thought we had seen the last of when Wilfried Nancy departed. It clearly played a significant role in our French manager’s downfall.
Osmand had not even featured on the bench in over six months. His appearance as a sub was a surprise in itself. In his career to date, he had played only 94 minutes of senior football across three substitute appearances. You would be forgiven for thinking, ‘Desperate stuff’. But you would be wrong.
Osmand’s final act will take all the headlines but his most telling contribution was his timed run (while over a yard onside) and perfect cross for Daizen Maeda to give Celtic the lead in the 88th minute. For a player dismissed as “Miles off it” by an earlier manager, but championed by Shaun Maloney and the rest of the coaching staff to Martin O’Neill, as soon as Irishman arrived for his first stint in charge this season, Callum was outstanding. We have a genuinely exciting 20-year-old on our hands.
Marcelo Saracchi came on at the same time as Osmand and played a pivotal role in the second Celtic goal, his directness in possession was exactly what was required that late in the game, that late in the season. The script was written for the man of the moment and Daizen Maeda was not about to let the occasion pass.
When he saw Osmand head towards the byline, Daizen moved away from him to create space in which to attack the coming cross. The goal was an instant of ecstasy for Celtic fans worldwide, which was frustrated by a bizarre offside flag which was correctly overruled by VAR. Ecstasy resumed when Don Robertson pointed to the centre spot and I am not sure it will ever end. We may now have to live with being permanently ecstatic.
Sky Sports had its greatest moment since the “Agueroooooooo” goal in2012. Hearts fans distraught at getting to the 88th minute of the final game of the season as champions-elect, only to see their hopes destroyed. Celtic fans, who had not seen their side top of the table since September, now believing, “It’s happening!!” Life in all its joys and tortures was there, beamed around the world for gasping audiences.
All that was left was the most incredible end to a season ever recorded, more so than that 2012 win by Manchester City. There was one minute on the clock when Callum McGregor conceded a free kick 40 yards from the Celtic goal. Derek McInnes told Schwolow to leave his goal and get into the Celtic box. When the resultant kick was knocked out the box, every Celtic player pushed out, seven Hearts players, stood still. That caused the most overwhelming overload you will ever see. Iheanacho, McGregor, James Forrest, the referee and Callum Osmand were all ahead of the nearest Hearts player. It was indeed happening. Celebrating this goal was the most fantastic experience. The outcome was inevitable six seconds before it happened; allowing us the most delicious anticipation of pleasure known to man. You just don’t get this at a football game.
1986, 1988, 1998 and 2017 are the most iconic seasons I have experienced. It’s too early to know if this tops the lot; recency bias, and all that. But today, it feels like it does. We were so low, so often. So many late, late, goals. Behind in our last three games with no space to drop points.
The brilliant game against Newco just over a week ago with one of the greatest goals we have ever seen. The even-more outstanding game against Motherwell, conceding in the 85th minute, then its momentous conclusion. Finally, the Hearts game that won the title. Scoring with literally the last kick of the ball in the final two games of the season – and I don’t recall that happening once before in my Celtic supporting life.
Scottish football outdid itself this season, credit to Falkirk, St Mirren, Hibernian and Motherwell for their playing style, to Newco for their recovery and coming so close after Russell Martin, and, of course, to Hearts. Derek McInnes’ reaction to our entirely-legitimate penalty at Motherwell, or on Saturday, might cloud your judgement on this, but football does things to people. To McInnes, to you and to me.
Most of all, congratulations to Martin O’Neill, his team of winners, to Celtic Football Club and the supporters who inspired them to historic greatness.
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Damn autocorrect
These may be the end of McInnes’ managerial career if extended beyond the world cup.
FIFA is implementing strict new rules for the 2026 World Cup to eliminate time-wasting, including a 10-second limit for substituted players to leave the pitch, a 5-second countdown for throw-ins and goal kicks, and a 1-minute off-field waiting period for players receiving on-pitch medical treatment.
These new regulations introduce strict limits on restarts and substitutions to maximize ball-in-play time:
Timed Substitutions: A departing player must leave the pitch within 10 seconds. If they take longer, their replacement will not be allowed to enter the game until the first stoppage after a full 1-minute period has elapsed, temporarily leaving the team a man down.
5-Second Restarts: If a referee judges that a player is deliberately delaying a throw-in or a goal kick, a 5-second visual countdown will begin. If the ball is not put into play when the countdown ends, possession is handed to the opposing team or a corner kick is awarded.
Off-Field Medical Treatment: Any player requiring on-field medical assessment must leave the field of play and wait for at least one minute before returning, discouraging feigned injuries. The only exception is if the injury was caused by a foul that resulted in a card for an opposing player.
I would also suggest 30 second restart after a goal. The team which lost the goal is able to kick off so long as all of their players are in their half of the field.
Por Cierto
McPhail Bhoy
How did you know?🤔😂
Jas1160 @ 1:23pm
Re your 2nd paragraph …
I hear you and get where you are coming from
… but I respectfully disagree.
Now is the time for Celtic to continue to show corporate leadership in Scottish Football, working with the SPFL and most other clubs.
As an intelligent strategic counter to the
“naughty boys monopolising our game” guff
For sure …
… at both an emotional and corporate level
… we will not be given the time of day by Hearts (forever), R2ngers (forever) or, in the near future, Kilmarnock.
But positive, symbiotic relationships with most other clubs are there for us.
Bhoyjoebelfast on 18th May 2026 1:33 pm
FIFTY-SIX……Keep ’em coming BHOYS.
Indeed.
And don’t forget to remind the world that we are at 14 out of 15….
Weeron
What weekend proved is they there are only two groups in Scottish football.
1 Celtic supporters
2. Anti Celtic supporters
My late father used to point this out. Maybe this time some hibees are the exception
Meanwhile the BBC are still pushing the point deduction narrative.
Get it up them
Yes the pitch invasion, initallly through relief and understandable excitement, went too far.
But I hope the Celtic hierarchy come out swinging and cleave the heads of those shrills who’ve fronted the considerable number of those in the media with a dog in the fight.
Maybe even Ross Desmond finds his voice again and is in the vanguard defending the club’s honour.
https://youtu.be/BfoOuISqHC8?si=_0aaWlJgmipoD9l2
Brilliant, Martin.
Incidentally, was it not Iheanacho who won the ball from Devlin as he tried to set up for a shot – although Calmac then played the forward pass to Osmand?
All the talk about points deduction is noise to stimulate clicks and viewings.
If such punitive measures were to be introduced, there is no way on earth that they could be applied retrospectively.
The key thing in all of this is that the referee declared the game to be over – and we were 2 goals ahead with seconds remaining.
McInnes apoplectic over the Celtic fans coming onto the pitch (though even I say ban them all!) and putting the Hearts players safety in danger, particularly the assault on Shankland, who spent the final minutes of the game trying to get involved in argy bargy with Celtic players, just a few feet from the Celtic fans.
“Celtic fan attacks Hearts captain Lawrence Shankland”
https://youtube.com/shorts/xMVK7GeGU6M?si=lgge1Ro8WMOLQb7O
And now there’s talk of Celtic either being stripped of their title, achieved through legitimate sporting performance and results across the whole season, or starting next season with a points deduction… though to negatively impact our chances of winning a 6th consecutive title the deduction would presumably need to be greater than the 12 point Nancy invoked deduction from this season, which still didn’t stop us coming out on top!
Perhaps the punishment applied to the club for the heinous assault evidenced on the above video clip should be the same as that applied to the club supported by the perpetrator of the almost identical(!) incident on the following video…
https://youtu.be/gsjgNZP_hmE?si=ZOk3sNRJqarIe0gn
Also, read this report and view the embedded video:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-14913385
Perhaps we should listen to Hearts’ on this one. After all, they seem to be experts on the dark arts of abusing, intimidating and assaulting opponents!
Tim Malone Will Tell on 18th May 2026 2:14 pm
Incidentally, was it not Iheanacho who won the ball from Devlin as he tried to set up for a shot – although Calmac then played the forward pass to Osmand?
Yip, that’s how I remember it, although much alcohol has been consumed celebrating since then.
Tim Malone, I believe you are correct. Have a Nacho as a reward!
MON & Neil Francis Lennon are the only 2 managers from the occupied/soulled-out/6-counties who’ll cage fight to enshrine Celtic’s Integrity.
Not by being green tinted bigots who can only see one way.
But because they have the honesty to be straight to the point on any and every issue.
May God forever protect these 2 Celtic Lion’s.
Darren O’Dea is showing great promise as well too by being the opposite of a Peter Grant erchie kisser!
https://news.stv.tv/sport/martin-oneill-rejects-nonsense-criticism-of-celtic-pitch-invasion
Celtic’s countless Lion’s live forever CSC
HRVATSKI JIM on 18TH MAY 2026 1:40 PM
I would go further than that.
Players know the game will be stopped if they go down clutching their face or head. Rightly so if it is legitimate.
However, more often than not it isn’t.
If the referee has to stop a game for a head injury, it should be mandatory for the player to go off for a Head Injury Assessment (HIA) as they do in rugby.
With such a tsunami of anti-Celtic sentiment sweeping the (Scot)land after Celtic’s sensational achievement on Saturday, perhaps we should again be actively pursuing a route out of this vitriolic, Celtic hating league. Let them have their opportunity to win league titles without having to compete with the best team in the land, while we go to enjoy rather less success by taking on bigger challenges and greater acceptance and respect in a better and more tolerant environment.
God bless Peter Lawwell keeping the green flag flying despite the begrudgers naysayers and malcontents…
Too Soon ??? 😃 😊
I hope the club takes this golden opportunity and gets on the front foot to attack those who’ve ignored the imperartives needed to address so many of Scotland’s societal problems.
Where’s the actions to address the long recognised “secret shame” of sectarianism in Scotland’s police force?
Where’s the action to force referee’s to declare which team they support?
In a deeply sectarian society like Scotlands that is an absolute necessity – foreign officials are an absolute must in high profile games.
BigChipsUK on 18th May 2026 2:29 pm
“McInnes apoplectic over the Celtic fans coming onto the pitch (though even I say ban them all!) and putting the Hearts players safety in danger,”
|
The all seating scam/psyop/Government/pisstake from 1989 was supposed to stop all of that stuff.
RIP The 97 Innocent Liverpool Fans Government Murder Victims.
WEE RON @ 1:55
Indeed,ztay safe.
Stay safe WEE RON.
Hearts celebrated their title win prematurely after they beat the son of, the Sons of Struth. They both felt the same, and had forgotten about Celtic.
It’s traumatised not only them but ‘neutral Scotland’ it seems, by the time we get to the Cup Final they might have pulled the plug on VAR, the new unseen fenian hand.🖐️ How about we forfeit the Cup? or just hand it over to ever popular, brings it all on himself – Neil Lennon?
The feeding frenzy caused by Celtic going a goal down three times in the same week, is officially off the radar, Celtic ‘comebacks’ could be taken as the retribution for someone else’s sins in a previous life.
C’est La Vie CSC
And there it is…..
https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/sport/26116198.former-ref-delivers-concrete-celtic-vs-hearts-full-time-verdict/
With all due respect, all seating had nothing to do with pitch invasions – but everything to do with stopping treating fans like caged animals in small penned enclosures.
When I first moved to England, I couldn’t believe that encagement and crushing was the norm and was genuinely fearful of personal safety when I took my dad to a league cup semi final tie at White Hart Lane where the stewarding and crowd control left a lot to be desired.
We even had dickheads like Ken Bates suggesting that the fencing should be electrified – just treating the fans like vermin.
Hillsborough was a tragedy waiting to happen – to suggest that all seater stadiums does not improve safety disrespects the 97 dead in my opinion.
BACK TO BASICS – GLASS HALF FULL on 18TH MAY 2026 1:20 PM
Very profound..but all true 🥴👍🤣☘️
Trusty is a good defender in the Duffy mold, he’ll head balls away all day, mop up and clear his lines, but the problems arise when having to actually play football on the deck, the whole show unravels.
Until that change on Saturday, until Trusty was hooked, we could play for a full week and we were not going to score. These defenders look great playing for mediocre teams, Duffy, a prime example, heading balls away all day when playing for Ireland and whatever club he was at, like throwing buns to elephants.
Useless when you try to play out from the back.
Martin O’Neill and a laptop could be the new board…..try it and see….look closer….
https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/sport/26116164.oneill-celtic-defence-amid-nonsense-hearts-statement/
The board NEED TO BE SACKED don’t forget that bit after we staggered over the line in last 5 minutes of a very trying season.
Motherwell Manager.
Shaun Maloney as the new DOF guy.
MON and his laptop as the new board.
See what happens…..
In other news…
Sir/Lord Haughey and his plans to turn Independent Scotland into a corrupt Tax haven for the offshore crooked billionaires, based on Ireland’s corrupt Tax haven, needs to be hunted from the Celtic Lexicon along with Sir Rod the fraud!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HIgc0ioWIAAtzEq.jpg?name=orig
PS, you aren’t allowed to reach the billionaire level unless you go along with ALL Zog diktats and other horrible stuff.
Just saying.
laters….
What an afternoon at paradise- which lived up to its nickname.
I was there in 98 when a season of unrelenting pressure (because of 2 very good teams) reached a crescendo of relief and joy.
This season, the pressure was largely self inflicted but my feeling at full time on Saturday was reminiscent of 28 years ago.
Having said that, I didn’t cry in 1998, but I and others did on Saturday. Some of it was simply an exhausted relief after the past couple of months of must win, often last minute winning, games. I was also particularly emotional about Martin O’Neill- the Martin of the early 2000s and the Martins of 2025 and 2026.
As regards the end of match scenes, Ken Early in the Irish Times today (on the same page of a contrary article by Ewen Cameron), makes the comparative analogy with a certain game in 1966 when some people were on the pitch….
Not many calls for sanctions at that emotional outburst of course.
Our fans do need in future to stay off the pitch. We don’t need to give our opponents ammunition.
Returning to the game- if only we could get Iheanacho fit! He helped change the game massively. I am coming to the conclusion that, for reasons unknown to us, he still never be fully fit. If that is the case, then a rolling or 1 year contract would be sensible.
The players deserve such credit for their mentality over the past couple of months. I got the impression from MON that even he was far from convinced they would put this run together. Callum, obviously deserves our thanks. From the outside, AJ, KT and Jamesie seem also to play a motivating roll.
I would love to tie down AJ- he would certainly be one of a core around whom we can build a competitive side.
Open letter to Scottish football.
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
Celtic FC tend to win the league at a canter, taking all hope and excitement out of the equation for opposition teams and supporters. This season, to make things more competitive we changed manager three times, intentionally injured most of our first team, signed duds in January, didn’t complain to the SFA about repeated referee bias, deliberately avoided the Champions League and instigated a fan revolt, reducing our revenue and leading to disruptive antics at games.
The consequence was a closer league race, and so when we won the league – as we always knew we would – our supporters reacted with a measure of elation, some entering the field to celebrate. Others drank alcohol and sang songs in Glasgow city centre after the game.
However, this elation has now been officially categorised by the BBC and others as a crime against humanity.
We will make sure it doesn’t happen again by stable management, buying better players, keeping them fit, proactively defending Celtic from bias, being more successful in Europe, maximising our revenue and not winding up our supporters.
This should result in a league victory next April. Back to dull old methodical league titles, no excitement and no crimes against humanity.
Sincerely
Celtic FC
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYexMDkjbPa/?igsh=MWNkaWVtbXp2cndkdw==
MON shuts down White on talksport
It has been reported that LED advertising boards are part of the bill and while Celtic are under the impression that compensation is capped at £50,000, Rangers believe they are able to recoup more.
The whole of IBROX is not worth £1 million.
The Ibrox club state that “extensive damage” amounting to £1.3 million was caused by Celtic fans during a high-octane Old Firm clash which went the way of the visitors after a penalty shoot-out.
SORRY MISSED THIS BIT
they should check their winfall tickets
—————–
saint stivs
May 18, 2026 3:23 pm
2025/26 Winning NumbersCeltic v Rangers – Sunday, May 10
1st C3567
2nd T1040
3rd U1787
4th Z15714
5th U1257
£25,000 is yet to be claimed.
You mean you weren’t serious when you said Hearts couldn’t handle 3 games in 8 days? When their goal went in, I was all “Don’t worry, guys. We’ve got them exactly where we want them.”
What is Daizen Maeda’s best position?
Wide left goal scorer, ( Bobby Lennox ) central goalscorer, ( Dixie Deans ) the player can’t be pigeon holed he should just be picked. The MON effect teased him back to his best and with only a year left on his contract there will be no shortage of suitors. Double figures, no less than Celtic should expect, maybe more after the World Cup, for the quiet unassuming family guy, who goes about his Glaswegian life.
Daizen’s best position will always be undoubtedly ‘ Celtic legend ‘ 🇯🇵 🇨🇮
Silver City
Interesting chat bout the 3 games in 8 days
I think overall we played 15 of so games more,no europe.for them as we had
HH
BigChipsUK on 18th May 2026 2:38 pm
I am sure it won`t happen but I really would like it if we left the SPFL .
I am not convinced that the Powers that be in football are against us but I am certain that the General Media is.
Favourite uncle 3.23pm, I don’t know if this link will work, but this was a photo of the damage allegedly caused to Ibrox by Celtic fans that has been costed at £1.3M. Alas, the damage done to their club as a whole by the results on March 8th and May 16th will eclipse this amount!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/VPJg1B1z3fGNwYtX6