Thursday, October 29, 2009

Celtic 0 - 1 Hearts

So much to talk about following Celtc's defeat to ha-ha-Hearts in the CIS League Cup last night, but let's ignore the Old Firm angle for a moment - they've had plenty coverage, no? - and think about Hearts for a moment.

In the build-up to the game, manager Csaba Laszlo gave a frankly hilarious press conference in which he expressed his anger at the current situation at the club, beset by problems and lacking a clear structure.

Hardly helping to bring clarity to the situation, owner Vladimir Romanov jetted into Edinburgh ahead of the match, and apparently introduced the club's new sporting director to the players, but not the manager. All nice and straightforward, then.

And so to the game, which Hearts won after Christian Nade - a player who admitted this week to personal problems affecting his game, but didn't elaborate on them - was brought down in the box, and Michael Stewart - who was booed by his own fans in Hearts' last game against Falkirk - converted the penalty. Unsurprisingly, he passed up the opportunity to celebrate with the Jambo support.

Celtic were unlucky last night, but that didn't prevent the 18,000 or so that turned up from venting their fury at Tony Mowbray at the final whistle. Georgie Samaras once again showed that he is far from a lethal finisher, while captain McManus committed probably the most cynical and reckless tackle you'll see all season. If you haven't already seen it, you really should - it's a shocker.

Is Mowbray's job on the line, just 3 months into the season? The board won't pull the trigger yet, but the faithful are getting madder and madder and things might come to a head if the results don't improve soon.

Scottish football's pretty exciting at the moment. Who'd want to leave it?

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