NO EURO HANGOVER
Joe Hart and his Celtic team mates returned to action today after their physically and mentally draining Champions League meeting with holders Real Madrid in Spain on Wednesday night.
There was no European hangover – they recorded a 4-2 win over Dundee United at Parkhead that increased their lead over Rangers at the top of the table to seven points.
That will be reduced to four again if the Ibrox club beat St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park tomorrow.
Still, Ange Postecoglou can be satisfied with the level of performance which his charges produced after their midweek exertions in the Bernabeu.
Yes, Celtic left it late – it took a last minute Kyogo Furuhashi goal and a Liel Abada strike in injury-time to sew up the three points.
But the hosts dominated the 90 minutes, created a glut of chances and deserved to triumph.
Postecoglou made seven changes to his starting line-up; Anthony Ralston, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Alexandro Bernabei, Jota, David Turnbull, Sead Haksabanovic and Giorgos Giakoumakis all came in. There was no drop in standard.
The Greek-Australian has the strength in depth he needs to negotiate all three domestic competitions and enjoy another successful season.
VAR TOO LONG
Dundee United suffered from a bad VAR call last weekend when Tony Watt was ordered off for a challenge on Sean Goss in the cinch Premiership match against Motherwell at Tannadice.
The Tayside club appealed to the SFA and the red card was reduced to a yellow earlier this week. Watt was on the bench for the league meeting with Celtic at Parkhead today.
But United benefitted from the new technology this afternoon. They were awarded a penalty after falling behind to an early Haksabanovic goal.
David Dickinson’s control room colleagues spotted that Alexandro Bernabei had handled the ball in his own area and the referee gave a spot kick after watching a replay of the incident on a monitor in the tunnel.
Steven Fletcher made no mistake from 12 yards out and levelled the game.
United may have ended up losing at the end of the 90 minutes. But their manager, players and supporters will have a more favourable view of VAR after this outing than they did before.
Still, the SFA must strive to reduce the length of time it takes to make decisions.
They system needs time to perfect here. It was always inevitable there would be teething issues. But there is far, far too much standing around at the moment and it is killing the flow of matches as well as the atmosphere.
SUPERB SEAD
Haksabanovic has shown exactly why Postecoglou was so keen to bring him to Scotland back in August with his performances for Celtic in the past couple of months.
The Swedish-born Montenegrin internationalist has played with great energy and no little invention both out wide and in the playmaker role for the Scottish champions.
But the 23-year-old had not netted going into the United game. He finally opened his account with a well-taken first-half double.
He turned in a Jota cross from a few yards out for the first and pounced on a weak headed clearance from Aziz Behich for the second. They promise to be the first of many for the winger.
Having cost just £1.7m, the skilful and powerful winger has proved to be another outstanding Postecoglou signing.
He received a standing ovation when he was replaced by Abada in the second-half.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel