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“What an absolute joke,” rages Joshua Keeling, who is “not even a Hearts fan”. “Celtic get all the decisions. That is an absolute shambles of a decision. His arm was in a natural position as he slid to block the ball. Fuming. If Hearts don’t go on to win the league today, they have been well and truly done over by the referees. It’s a joke.”
Half time: Celtic 1-1 Hearts
45+6 mins: And breathe!
GOAL! Celtic 1-1 Hearts (Engels, 45+4 mins)
Engels converts! It’s not a good penalty at all, and Schwolow goes the right way, but the ball goes under him!
45+3 mins: I think it’s a harsh decision, but one that is taken all the time. There was no movement of hand to ball, but there’s absolutely no doubt that it hit him.
45+2 mins: Kyziridis slides to block Tierney’s cross from the left. His right hand is raised, though, and the ball is blasted right into it!
Penalty to Celtic!
45+2 mins: A penalty to Celtic for handball in stoppage time, is it?
45+1 mins: Into stoppage time, and there’ll be three minutes of it. “It is a great occasion but not a great game so far,” writes Gordon, in Aberdeen. “Hearts won’t care, though, if it stays like this. Celtic fans are heaping pressure on their own team with the groans and boos at every misplaced pass by the home team.” Since Gordon wrote it hasn’t stayed like that, and the day has swung further in Hearts’ favour.
GOAL! Celtic 0-1 Hearts (Shankland, 43 mins)
That is a phenomenal corner. Shankland stays well out of the melee in the middle, earning himself a free run on the ball as it dips just beyond the far post – and he’s not missing that!
42 mins: A Hearts long throw is headed behind by Scales, and the visitors crowd the penalty area. But Kingsley plays it backwards, deep to Kyziridis, an unexpected pass but not a very good one. But Hearts recycle the ball and win another corner…
40 mins: Steinwender, certainly the player of the half so far, wins a free kick on the edge of his own penalty area. Schwolow kicks it long.
38 mins: A bit of space for Hearts now, but Kabore’s toepoke hits Scales. Celtic break, and Steinwender is booked for trying (and failing) to stop them doing so. At the end of it, a Celtic corner.
37 mins: As I type that Hearts do attack, and Altena has a curling shot from 25 yards that goes wide, and also high.
36 mins: Hearts are defending very well, but they’re just doing too much of it. Schwolow keeps kicking the ball long, and inevitably Celtic win the header and start to build again.
35 mins: The game’s first yellow card is waved at Johnston, for tripping Jordi Altena.
34 mins: More than a third of the match has been played now, and still it’s goalless. Celtic have dominated possession, but Hearts have arrived with a plan and so far it’s working.
32 mins: A shot on target! It’s Tounekti’s effort for Celtic, from 20 yards or so, but it flies low and hard straight to Schwolow.
31 mins: I really remember watching a game between Watford and Aston Villa in which Watford had clearly made the same calculation regarding Villa’s Mark Delaney. Sure enough Delaney spent most of the match giving the ball away … until the point where he, inevitably unmarked, volleyed into the top corner from 30 yards to give his side a 1-0 win.
29 mins: According to Sky Trusty has so far had twice as many touches as the second most touchy player in the game so far. Hearts are deliberately leaving the Celtic centre-back in space, trusting that he won’t be able to do anything very dangerous with all his possession.
27 mins: Nygren chests the ball down 40 yards from the Hearts goal, and Maeda is briefly open and available in front of him, but the pass runs behind the Japanese forward.
25 mins: Celtic’s long throw is headed away by Steinwender and then headed further away by Altena, who is promptly clattered by Johnston. The Hearts physios come back on.
23 mins: A quarter of the game has been played, and there has been one effort on goal of any note, Trusty’s third-minute header.
20 mins: Celtic play the ball around their defence for an age, before eventually lifting it over the Hearts defence to Yang Hyun-Jun, who dances into the area before being dispossessed by Milne’s excellent challenge – at which point the flag goes up.
19 mins: Now Celtic try to play Maeda through. Steinwender slides and stretches to intercept, and limps away from the challenge having done so.
17 mins: When I’m out for a run I tend to break it down into fractions in my head, working out when I’m a pleasingly simple measure of the way through. Similarly, Hearts have successfully navigated the first sixth of the match. Steinwender is back on the pitch.
15 mins: Boos as Steinwender gingerly leaves the field after receiving treatment, and more after Celtic return the ball to Hearts.
14 mins: Celtic play the ball forward towards the run of Johnston, but Steinwender comes across and gets there first. Johnson’s raised knee goes into his thigh, though, and now the physios are working on him.
12 mins: The free-kick leads to a corner, which is sent curling into the gloves of Sinisalo.
10 mins: Another Milne long throw, which is headed away but then Nygren brings Milne down, and Hearts can put the ball in the box from a free-kick this time.
9 mins: Milne nutmegs Johnson (good) before clumsily overhitting a cross out of play (bad).
8 mins: A less good delivery from Engels this time, and it hoops over the area and back out of play.
7 mins: An excellent pass from Tierney finds Engels in the penalty area, but he can only convert it into a corner.
5 mins: Celtic send in a long throw, which is flicked on by Steinwender, but there’s nobody there to turn it in! Shankland thinks he was unfairly stopped from being there, but there’ll be no early penalty.
3 mins: And a chance from the corner! Excellent delivery, but Auston Trusty heads over!
2 mins: Celtic win a corner. Hearts were really poor in the first 10 minutes or so against Falkirk in midweek. Celtic are more likely to punish a repeat.
1 min: Celtic are straight on the front foot. Johnson is played down the right, and he plays an excellent low cross into the penalty area, but a defender slides to block it.
1 min: Peeeeeeeep! Don Robertson blows his whistle. The players are having to deal with a lot of pressure today, but think of the pressure on that man’s shoulders.
You’ll Never Walk Alone is sung. Celtic’s players huddle. It is almost time.
Out come the players! Amid jets of fire, scarves whirled overhead or held aloft, and a stupendous amount of noise.
And now Martin O’Neill is asked about his pre-match message to his side, after Celtic named an unchanged side for the first time since December:
It’s the same message as before, just try and win the game. It’s as simple as that. We’re in a position over the last number of weeks where we’ve got in here, now let’s make the most of us. We’ve kept the starting lineup from Motherwell and we’ll try to take it on from there.
We have to, at the end of 90-odd minutes, we have to try and find ourselves in front, but I don’t think there’s any point going gung-ho and find yourself behind because you’ve been hit on the break. Hopefully we can manage the situation.
I’ve got to say I’m really excited. We’ve strived hard to close the gap week after week and now we’ve got a chance on our home ground to try and do something with the crowd right behind us.
Derek McInnes has a chat with Sky:
Just to have the confidence and belief that we can get a result here. We’vce played Celtic three times this season and they’ve failed to beat us. We ain’t playing 60,000 we’re playing the same players that have tried to beat us all season. We look relaxed and hopefully we can bring another performance. The performances have been there this season, that’s why we’re in this position. Whoever comes out on top will deserve to win the league. It’s so difficult to set up a team to play for a draw. For me here, the intention always is to make sure we’re pretty secure, but then as the game goes we’ve got to make sure we’re attacking as well as trying to defend.
On Claudio Braga being on the bench:
He’s struggling a wee bit with a groin injury, we’ve been trying to manage it for a couple of weeks. It’s not ideal. We think he’ll be able to give us something. We don’t think he can give us 90 minutes. It’s not ideal Claudio not being fully fit, but I think he’s still going to have a big part to play.
Here’s Ewan Murray’s preview of this match, and its place in history:
This Hearts story did not begin with Stuart Findlay’s late winner at Tannadice in August, a stoppage-time intervention from Alexandros Kyziridis against Livingston later that month or the September victory at Ibrox that materially fuelled belief among Derek McInnes’s squad. Brian Cormack, Alex Mackie, Jamie Bryant, Donald Ford and Garry Halliday will not feature in the Hearts team seeking to create history at Celtic Park but that quintet set this club on a path that after 16 years has almost – though only almost – reached the ultimate glory point.
Cormack and Mackie joked back then, when among a group establishing the Foundation of Hearts, that one day they would watch the team they love compete in the Champions League from a new main stand at Tynecastle Park. With the stand complete, Hearts will enter the Champions League’s qualifying phase this summer. Humour proved prescient. In the west of Edinburgh, as Hearts pursue the point they need in Glasgow on Saturday to win the title for the first time since 1960, original FoH directors will gather to watch together. Their role in Hearts’ rise should never be forgotten.
Much more here:
Three changes for Hearts, who drop Frankie Kent, Claudio Braga and Blair Spittal to the bench and bring Stephen Kingsley, Pierre Landry Kabore and Jordi Altena. No changes for Celtic.
The teams!
Celtic: Sinisalo, Johnston, Trusty, Scales, Tierney, McGregor, Engels, Nygren, Yang, Tounekti, Maeda. Subs: Doohan, McCowan, Iheanacho, Osmand, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Saracchi, Murray, Forrest, Ralston.
Hearts: Schwolow, Steinwender, Findlay, Kingsley, Altena, Baningime, Devlin, Milne, Kyziridis, Kabore, Shankland. Subs: Fulton, Kent, McCart, Braga, Borchgrevink, Spittal, Forrest, Kerjota, Chesnokov.
Referee: Don Robertson.
Hello world!
And so the day has come, the day when decisions will be made and champions determined. Hearts play Celtic at Celtic Park needing to avoid defeat to seal the title. Celtic’s record against Hearts at home? Well there was a run of 23 wins in 24 games between 2009 and 2023 (and they drew the other one). but since then it’s three wins for Celtic and two for Hearts, including their previous meeting this season, back in December. Celtic’s form is remarkable, but then this week they were unconvincing and needed a horror penalty decision to beat Motherwell 3-2, while Hearts outplayed Falkirk and won 3-0. Ahead of this game Martin O’Neill was asked what he made of the furore surrounding that penalty:
Am I surprised? No, I’m not surprised because everybody wants Hearts to win. It’s really as simple as that. Everybody outside Celtic and the Celtic diaspora wants Hearts to win. And if it wasn’t Hearts, it would to be Rangers, it’d be somebody else, that’s the nature of it.
Spare me the Celtic-against-the-world schtick, please. But it is undeniable that the overwhelming majority of neutrals would like to see someone other than Celtic and Rangers win the Scottish title, and this Hearts side seems pretty likeable. Here’s Derek McInnes on today:
It’s a perfect ending to a season for the league, for Scottish football, for drama and excitement ... It’s pure box office. It’ll be bedlam, it’ll be an unbelievable atmosphere. There might be people out there who think everything’s back on script, ‘Celtic win their home game, they win the league.’ But we’ve ripped the script up so often this season, and we’ve got one more in us I think, and it’s up to us to try and make that happen.
And here’s Ewan Murray on referee John Beaton and the Celtic penalty fallout:
