| Match Pictures | Matches: 1996 – 1997 | 1997-1998 Pictures |
Trivia
- The Bhoys had just lost the third game of the season against Rangers – the one in which van Hooijdonk and Thom started from the bench. Rangers held a 14 point advantage over Celtic in the League.
- The fall-out from that game would continue for some time with evidence of clear bias from one of the linesmen.
- Stewart Kerr and John Paul McBride (just coming through with the Reserves and Youth squads) both signed new 2 year deals.
Paul McStay had just been awarded an MBE in the New Year’s honours list. - Tommy Burns was alleged to be in the hunt for a new striker and was looking at Darren Jackson then at Hibernian.
- David Hannah had been signed from Dundee Utd somewhat perplexingly from Dundee Utd. for £650k.
- Boyd was captain for the game in the absence of McStay.
Review
A good win against McLeish’s Motherwell at home in front of the lowest crowd of the season so far, though the Bhoys were pretty profligate in front of goal, three goals coming in the last 15 minutes.
Weighorst’s first goal of the season.
Teams
Celtic (3-5-2): Kerr; Boyd, MacKay, Gray; McNamara, O’Donnell (Donnelly 82mins), Hannah, Thom (Weighorst 73), Di Canio (McLaughlin 88); van Hooijdonk, Cadete.
Scorers: Di Canio (pen 28) 1-0; van Hooijdonk (40) 2-0; Cadete (75, 86) 4-0; Weighorst (87) 5-0.
Motherwell (4-4-2): Woods; Philliben, van der Gaag, McCart (Denham 45), McSkimming (Ross 69); May, Dolan, Davies, Roddie (Burns 79); Falconer, Coyne.
Yellow cards: McKay, McNamara (Celtic); McCart, Denham (Motherwell).
Referee: K W Clark (Paisley).
Attendance: 45,374.
Articles
- Match Report
Pictures
- Match Pictures
- Fans
Stats
| Celtic | Motherwell | |
| Fouls | 15 | 14 |
| Shots on target | 15 | 5 |
| Corners | 14 | 1 |
| Offside | 8 | 9 |
Celtic rally to the cause
Scotland on Sunday 05/01/1997
Phil Gordon Celtic 5 Motherwell 0
IN the real Foreign Legion they send out ruthless snatch squads to bring back the deserters; Celtic’s version merely rounds up the goals.
The usual suspects were all here as Tommy Burns’ team sought to exorcise the memory of Ibrox. Paolo di Canio, Pierre van Hooijdonk and Jorge Cadete, along with, more surprisingly, Morten Wieghorst, showed that the continental resilience to setbacks is equally as strong as our own perceived determination.
If there was to be any mass insurrection in the ranks after that Old Firm defeat, Parkhead found little evidence of it. Some 45,374 turned up to support the cause and possibly seek solace in each other’s company, and, if that figure represents Celtic’s lowest home attendance of the season, it says more about the club’s strength rather than weakness.
That crowd, along with every other interested football observer in the country, was curious to see just how Burns’ players would react as just 43 hours had elapsed since the stinging experience at the hands of Rangers. The answer was supplied in the shape of the biggest win over Motherwell since 1970, a time everyone at Celtic is very keen to return to, at least in terms of success on the park.
Certainly, Burns was heartened by the response. The championship gap may be a yawning chasm, but the last thing the Celtic manager needed was for it to be stretched any further by a show of mournful wallowing in self misery.
“It’s always in your mind that the Rangers game could affect the players. It was a very difficult game to come back to after the bitter experience at Ibrox. But we worked hard over the last day and a half to get the players in the right frame of mind and they were very positive in everything they did.”
Celtic’s greatest rivals may have been nursing an outbreak of flu, but it would have taken more than a few Lemsips to cure the pain that Celtic and their supporters felt after last Thursday. Whether those five goals turn out to be a panacea or merely a placebo remains to be seen, but right now the patient is not for keeling over and dying.
All the resentment which Celtic still nurse following Cadete’s disallowed goal against Rangers, which TV pictures have shown was legitimate, was understandably close to the surface in the early stages among players and supporters.
On several occasions, Cadete and Di Canio went down in the box appealing for penalties, but rightly on almost every occasion referee Kenny Clark dismissed those appeals.
Indeed, given the events of the last seven days – which also saw Motherwell suffer two gross pieces of refereeing injustice last week at Hearts – both the participants here would have been justified in seeking the help of victim support.
Celtic’s resentment was further fuelled in the 23rd minute when Cadete rushed in to try and pounce on the rebound from Van Hooijdonk’s 30-yard free-kick. The Portuguese striker tumbled, with Mitchel van der Gaag breathing down his neck, but his dive was a piece of wasted effort.
Much more convincing was the penalty award which came three minutes later from which Celtic went ahead, although Motherwell manager Alex McLeish is unlikely to agree, saying later: “It seems to be open season on us right now for penalties. That’s three in three weeks we’ve lost and that one was debatable.”
Sorry to disagree, but I felt that this time Motherwell deserved the punishment. Van der Gaag was climbing all over his Dutch colleague, Van Hooijdonk, like a bad rash as the Celtic striker sought to reach Di Canio’s free-kick into the penalty box. The Italian coolly converted the spot-kick, sending goalkeeper Steve Woods the wrong way, to net his third goal in four games and soothe those Celtic nerves.
Five minutes before the interval, Van Hooijdonk stretched the lead further, after a Di Canio corner had been knocked straight back out to the former AC Milan player, who this time curled in a much better cross for Hooijdonk to rise and powerfully head in his 13th goal of the season.
Motherwell replaced captain Chris McCart with Greg Denham at the interval in a bid to curb the pace of Cadete, and, for a long while, that policy paid off for manager Alex McLeish. Then, inexplicably, his side leaked three goals in the final 15 minutes.
Cadete claimed his part in the goal feast in the 75th minute after Jackie McNamara played a delightful one-two with Di Canio, who conjured up a wonderful flick, allowing the full-back to deliver a low cross to the near post which Cadete swept past Woods with his right foot.
Then, in the 86th minute, Cadete procured his second, playing a neat wall pass with Van Hooijdonk before converting a side-foot shot. Wieghorst, who had come on as a replacement for Andreas Thom in the 73rd minute, wrapped up the scoring with another goal just 60 seconds after Cadete’s. His fellow substitute, Simon Donnelly, had pounced on a slack ball and fed a pass to the Dane, who finished with a coolness unusual in a man collecting his first goal of the season.
- Manager Interview
” The result showed the mettle of the team – it was always going to be a difficult game coming so soon after the bitter disappointment of losing out at Ibrox despite playing so well.
“There’s always a worry that there might be a reaction, but we were very positive from the offand the result was good for the goals column and good for the supporters who were certainly entertained.
“We’ve always said we wouldn’t give up the title chase at any stage. We’ve got to keep improving our own standards, and that’s what we will do.”