Strikes from Lee Naylor and Georgios Samaras give Celtic important victory after a bruising encounter with Hibs
HIBS don't play with the same verve or have the same cutting edge of a season or two ago – hardly surprising given that their best players has been pilfered by the Old Firm – but on their day there is not a great amount to fault in the way they go after games, particularly when it's a Celtic or a Rangers man staring at them from the other end and especially when their more illustrious opponents turn up in the kind of distracted state Celtic did in the first half yesterday.
Celtic's early absent-mindedness in defence was grist to the Hibs mill. The home team had more energy, more chances, more of everything except goals in the opening half. They should have had more of those too but they didn't. And with each missed cha
nce you just knew exactly how this day was going to unfold.
Once again we saw a Celtic rival spurn chances only to be turned over in the end. Comprehensively, in this case. Hearts went the same way at Parkhead a few weeks ago; created things, missed them and paid the price. Lee Naylor scored his first goal for Celtic – in his 81st game – and Georgios Samaras claimed the third of his brief but increasingly impressive loan spell. It was the ninth win in a row in the SPL for Gordon Strachan's team.
And it meant an awful lot to them. Physically, it was rough going, something that Strachan made much of later. He said all of his attacking players had bumps and bruises – no word of anybody being ruled out for Tuesday night in Barcelona, however – after what he called "tasty tackles". Hibs got stuck in at every turn right enough and the faces of the Celtic players at the end had a look of joy at the win coupled with relief that the whole experience was over. Typically, Boruc took the celebrations further than anybody else. He smiled and waved at the Hibs fans and got himself a booking for his trouble.
Strachan was not best pleased at some of the challenges on his players – he lauded their discipline for "getting up and getting on with it" – and was annoyed at the referee for booking Boruc. Most of all, though, he was pleased to get out of here with the points.
For a while, they looked in danger. How Hibs failed to go ahead inside the first ten minutes was a puzzle for they seemed to be camped in Celtic territory. The spark for all of this was a Steven Fletcher ball down the right side to John Rankin, who scampered away on goal totally unharmed by a Celtic defender. He ran and ran but when the time came to pull the trigger, Rankin lost his nerve. True, Boruc had done well to narrow the angle and true again that the Pole in these situations must be a pretty intimidating sight. But Rankin's effort lacked conviction. Boruc beat it away with ease.
Hibs kept up the pressure and had the ball in the net two minutes later but their celebrations were cut short as Colin Nish was adjudged to have been offside when he headed Rankin's free-kick past Boruc from close range.
Celtic fans must have been raging at their defence. And their mood wouldn't have lifted much thereafter. A Rankin corner produced untold problems when first an Ian Murray header had to be cleared off the line by Stephen McManus and then an Abdel Zarabi shot was thumped away from the danger zone by Naylor. Celtic were in a bit of a mess but at least they were level. That was the upside and it was considerable given what happened later.
We continued on to the break with Celtic slowly getting into it. Shunsuke Nakamura put over a cross that Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink sent into the side-netting and Scott Brown had the first of many unsuccessful pots at goal. Hibs had more chances of their own, despite the loss of Guillaume Beuzelin to injury as early as the 16th minute. Fletcher's run and shot required an intervention from Andreas Hinkel and, judging by his pained expression, Martin Canning's flashing header off a corner didn't miss by much.
Fortunate to be level at the break, Celtic came out with a sense of purpose for the second half and if there was a feeling of impending doom among the home support then it would have been understandable. Suddenly, Celtic were alert and dangerous. Soon all the traffic began to head inexorably in one direction.
Naylor put Celtic ahead in the 64th minute following a long run that Hibs failed to deal with, a bit of luck with a kindly bounce and a finish of some aplomb, tucked away in the corner past the isolated Andrew McNeil. Brown's crusade to get on the scoresheet carried on with yet another effort and yet another close-run thing. Not that it bothered him much, not after Samaras made it two.
The Greek striker was on the field as a replacement for Vennegoor of Hesselink for only three minutes when Aiden McGeady picked him out in the box with a precise cross. Samaras, in scoring his second headed goal in a week, soared high and nutted it home.
Celtic were in raptures now while Hibs were in the place reserved for suckers who refuse to take their chances when they come. The Samaras goal left the stage clear for Boruc – and how he milked it.
The full article contains 927 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
