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Trivia
- The race to sign Malky MacKay hotted up. He had turned down Oxford Utd and West Bromwich Albion. French clubs Le Havre and Toulouse also made enquiries along with Freiburg and Werder Bremen from the Bundesliga.
- Alan Stubbs was suspended for the game, Morten Wieghorst was recovering from knee surgery,
- Tommy Burns was fined £100 for comments he made about referees after the last game against Rangers. It looked to observers that open war had broken out between the club and the SFA.
- Enrico Annoni was finally signed from Roma on 20/2/97 for £300,000 and a 3 year contract. He made the game but was an unused sub.
- Tosh McKinlay, who was out of contract at the end of the season started negotiations on a new contract.
- The case of Macari -v- Celtic Football Club had started at the High Court of Session in Edinburgh. Macari was suing the club for £431,000 for alleged breach of contract following his sacking in June 1994. Celtic were counter-suing for £250,000 for alleged mismanagement of the team during his eight months asCeltic's manager.
Review
Played in poor conditions again with the infamous Fir Park puddle and a howling wind.
Teams
Motherwell (4-4-2):
Howie; Wishart, Van Der Gaag, Martin, Ross (Denham 58); McMillan, May, Valakari, Coyle; McCulloch (Essandoh 64), Coyne.
Non Used Sub: Lehtonen
Yellow card: McMillan (Motherwell).
Celtic (4-4-2):
Kerr; McNamara, Boyd, MacKay, McKinlay, Donnelly (Thom 69), Grant, McStay, O'Donnell; Di Canio, Cadete.
Non Used Subs: Van Hooijdonk, Annoni
Scorer: Cadete (10).
Referee: J McCluskey (Stewarton).
Attendance: 12,131
Articles
- Match Report (see below)
Pictures
Stats
| Motherwell | Celtic | |
| Bookings | 1 | 0 |
| Fouls | 10 | 18 |
| Shots on Target | 2 | 6 |
| Corners | 5 | 8 |
| Offside | 4 | 6 |
Wind makes Burns's men wobble on tightrope
The Scotsman 24/02/1997
WHAT must Enrico Annoni have thought of us?
The quality of the game at Fir Park would have looked dubious in the extreme to a man whose last match was in Serie A. And then the Italian was chosen, after a day on the sidelines, for the random drug test.
An hour and 20 minutes after the game, Celtic's latest signing emerged from the medical room and made what appears to be, for foreign players here, the obligatory mobile phone call.
It's good to talk. It's even better to play under the right conditions.
The game in this country is impoverished enough without voluntarily looking for yet more areas of deprivation, though. Poor games tend to be followed by a search for mitigating circumstances but even Annoni would have recognised that neither he nor anybody else could have done much while playing into the teeth of a wind that made staying vertical an accomplishment in itself.
Tommy Burns betrayed the delight he felt at his win, dismissing the weather as an irrelevance. "I did it for 15 years. Why can't they?" the Celtic manager said, replying to an observation that the players must have been frustrated by the freakish weather.
The ball used to have a lace in it as well but change was nevertheless made to better the game. With wind is as high Saturday's, the game becomes as impossible as it would be to play on a flooded or snowbound surface.
Paradoxically, Celtic's goal showed a mastery of the elements. The passing movement between Simon Donnelly, Paolo di Canio and Jorge Cadete, who executed the finish by adroitly deceiving Scott Howie, Motherwell's goalkeeper, before scoring from an acute angle, justified Burns's selection policy.
Pierre Van Hooijdonk was left on the substitutes' bench because the manager felt that the introduction of Donnelly would see Celtic assume the shape which enhances their passing game.
The Dutchman took the exclusion with the right amount of professional disdain. It would, after all, be a highly suspicious attitude of mind if he publicly applauded the manager for doing without him.
Van Hooijdonk declined to discuss the matter at any length.
The only audible comment came when he was asked how he felt about being left on the substitutes' bench. "How do you think I feel?" he asked.
Celtic and Van Hooijdonk have been in dispute since the player claimed the club had reneged on a contractual promise made to him when he joined them two years ago.
Friction between the parties is now at a level where it is hard to envisage a solution which does not involve Van Hooijdonk playing for someone else .
The fact that the forward was unavailable for the Scottish Cup fourth-round replay with Hibs allowed Burns to think that it was better to get used to playing without him. Annoni, who was signed too late to be eligible for Wednesday's game at Celtic Park, was left out for the same reason.
If the loss of Van Hooijdonk is amply compensated by the even more prolific Cadete, the signing of the Italian symbolised a deficiency in Celtic's defence. Motherwell were unable to take advantage of either hesitancy or the wind sending clearances back into faces of the Celtic defenders.
The same side scored five times at Raith Rovers' earlier in the week and this is the kind of inconsistency which will keep Alex McLeish living on his managerial wits until the end of the season brings confirmation of Motherwell's continuing presence in the Premier Division.
Burns will experience similar anxieties while Celtic attend to the Cup and the pursuit of the championship. Cadete's ability to avoid injury is crucial and it will also be essential for Celtic to finish off the games they give themselves a chance of winning, such as this one, and the one which preceded it.
A replay against Hibs was made necessary because Celtic could not add to their early lead or withstand defensive uncertainty for 90 minutes. They are a team on a tightrope and there is no safety net.
- Manager Interview
Tommy Burns, post match:
"Simon hasn't been a regular starter but we had to bring him off after he hurt his back and Andy Thom added a bit more composure.
"But Simon did really well for the goal and he is a young player we have high hopes for whether that be out wide or in the middle, as he is the type of player that gives us options.
"We decided to opt for Di Canio playing up front with Cadete as Paolo can hold the ball up and Jorge is always on the last defender.
"He had two or three other chances to score but I'm very pleased overrall with the players' approach to the game.
"Paul McStay was tremendous in the middle of the park as we played some good football in stages
"It was always going to be a difficult game for us and in the latter stages we were aware that Motherwell could be in with a chance of sneaking something from the game."