| Match Pictures | Matches: 1999 – 2000 | 1999-2000 Pictures |
Trivia
- Celtic continued to come to terms with the disaster that had been the Scottish Cup game against Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Barnes, Black and McDermott had been sacked. Dalglish was in charge of the team.
- Dalglish had earlier stated that he regarded some members of the team as guilty as Barnes and the others that had lost their jobs. And Dalglish knew how to deal with players.
- Part of the aftermath saw Jonathon Gould dropped for this game. It was clear that he was being targeted for the half time shennanigans during the Inverness game and he immediately put in a transfer request. He did not travel with the party which holed up at Carnoustie prior to the game. Berkovic was also noticeable through his presence on the bench and not on the pitch.
- Marc Rieper was involved in the coaching set up after coming to terms witrh the fact that his playing days were over. The toe bone growth/spur that had been operated on several times and was the cause of his problems had failed to heal properly and he was unable to run. In the face of this evidence he was calling time on his Celtic playing career but went onto the coaching staff.
- The game was also beamed back live for showing at Celtic Park. However the one big screen that had been working failed and £5-a-head fans had to be directed into the lounges to mingle with executive club shandy tipplers to see the game on two TV screens inside.
Review
After the previous week’s off-field activities this game felt in some ways superfluous and in others a respite from the constant bombardment of fall out from the Inverness Caledonian Thistle game. At one and the same time it was also VERY important representing the first game after Barnes’ sacking and the away support were indeed excellent. Played in a snow storm that got worse as the game progressed, Dalglish imposed his coaching and will on the team and they turned in a very decent performance in the second half to win confortably. Ohhh and the resounding cry from the travelling support was…."Hughie Keevins….Yir a W****r….Yir a W****r" following the adenoidally challenged one's anti-Celtic bleating in the press.
Teams
Dundee: Douglas, Smith, Tweed, Wilkie, Ireland, Boyack, Rae, Robertson (Annand 85), McSkimming (Grady 73), Falconer, Bayne (Sharp 85).
Subs Not Used: Langfield, Van Eijs.
Celtic: Kharine, McNamara (Tebily 72), Stubbs, Boyd, Mahe, Wieghorst, Riseth, Mjallby, Moravcik (Healy 81), Wright (Burchill 72), Viduka.
Subs Not Used: Kerr, Berkovic.
Goals: Mjallby 67, Viduka 69, Healy 82.
Booked: Smith (Dundee) McNamara (Celtic)
Referee: Bobby Orr (Scotland).
Attendance: 10,044
Articles
- Match Report- see below
- Manager Interview
Kenny Dalglish post match:
"The reception I received and the players received from the fans was magnificent. That helped us win the game. What we have to do is to point the players in the right direction and we did that today and they responded well.
"I could not have asked for any more of a response from them. This was always going to be a difficult game because Dundee are a good side. So to win by three goals was a good performance from the lads.
"I have to admit that I never thought I would be walking out of that Dens Park tunnel again. The last time I did it was as a player and, while I have been back often enough, it has been in the board room and the directors box . . . and that is a bit different."
On Gould – "Dmitri Kharine was set to come into the team a little while ago but then he took ill and did not get that opportunity. I felt that he was due his chance and I told Jonathan Gould that on Friday. Stewart Kerr will also get a game in the weeks ahead. There was more than Jonathan who did not play today. I picked the team with the best interests of Celtic in mind."
On Tebily – "Maybe we saw the new Jimmy Johnstone out there today".
On Stubbs – "He thought he was back in kindergarten. It was a return to where he played years ago. Actually, I believe he did sometimes turn out there when he was at Bolton."
Pictures
Stats
| Dundee | Celtic | |
| Bookings | 1 | 1 |
| Red Cards | 0 | 0 |
| Fouls | 14 | 13 |
| Shots on Target | 3 | 10 |
| Corners | 2 | 14 |
| Offside | 3 | 6 |
Articles
Weathering the storm
Sunday Herald 13/02/2000
Michael Grant at Dens Park
IT used to be only Kenny Dalglish's post-goal smile which lit up Celtic like a shaft of sunlight, but his very presence had a uniquely galvanising effect on the entire club yesterday.
Whether last week was the worst in the club's existence will become clear only when events have become absorbed into their relevant place in history. What was evident at Dens Park, though, was the restorative effects of a mourning period.
Celtic fans yesterday concluded that three days of acrimonious bloodletting were enough. In the week when some insisted their season books would be thrown on the fire, their money spent instead on wreaths to lay outside Parkhead, the general body of their support instead returned to active service behind Dalglish and his players. They were astonishingly vocal, particularly in a second half in which they lifted their side to three late goals and a deserved, comfortable victory.
There was a quiet determination about the victory which Jocky Scott, the Dundee manager, had predicted ever since the watershed of Tuesday's nadir against Caledonian Thistle. Few who saw this game, and the cup humiliation, could have identified a single similarity in Celtic's performance. Listless, disorganised and hounded against First Division players, they were smooth, purposeful and resolute against Premier peers.
John Barnes' legacy requires Celtic to play out a meaningless season. They have played one more game and are seven points behind Rangers and they are out of the Scottish Cup. Dalglish, who will not regard the chance to win the CIS Insurance Cup as one of the great accolades of his career, will perform a dual role in the weeks ahead, fashioning a winning side while attempting to identify a permanent successor to his departed friend. Dalglish appeared to be a little surprised by how much he had enjoyed his enforced return to management last night, but it would still take a seismic shift in his intentions for him to still be in place when next season begins.
Dalglish was back in a dug-out for the first time since being sacked by Newcastle in September, 1998, but the break had done nothing to blunt his decisiveness. Six of the starting team against Caledonian Thistle were sacrificed. Eyal Berkovic, Olivier Tebily, Colin Healy and Mark Burchill were relegated to the substitutes' bench, while the ignominy for Regi Blinker and, particularly, Jonathan Gould was deeper still. Dalglish had reportedly fingered the goalkeeper, who has a contract with one tabloid paper, of leaking dressing-room gossip to journalists. His removal from the team allowed Dmitri Kharine only the third start of his Celtic career, and the first since a league game against Hibs in September.
More than the personnel was changed. Having already tried and failed with 4-2-2-2 and 3-4-1-2 under Barnes, Dalglish imposed a 4-3-1-2 formation on the side. The deployment of Alan Stubbs in midfield, maximising his passing ability while protecting the back four, was intriguing although it was Lubomir Moravcik who was of greatest impact in a floating role behind Ian Wright and Mark Viduka.
Celtic's travails obliterated any column inches Dundee may have expected in the build-up to the game, but there could never be a presumption that Scott's team would submit to the Parkhead will. The Dens Park manager had predicted his side would have to survive a 20-minute opening onslaught from Dalglish's wounded players, but in fact it was only after that spell had elapsed that his own team began to relinquish its influence on the first half.
Still awaiting their second home league win of an otherwise satisfactory season, Dundee at least seem capable of playing tidy football on their own surface. Barry Smith, Gavin Rae and Steven Boyack happily interchanged crisp passes along the right side of their midfield and it was Boyack's early run and pass which almost put Willie Falconer in on goal only for the striker to snatch his shot.
Dundee probed into the spaces in and around Stephane Mahe and Tom Boyd, but Celtic were alive to the value of stretching the play and Jackie McNamara and Moravcik gradually began to exploit the area behind Dundee's wide midfielders.
Moravcik was perhaps the solitary Celt who escaped the rotten vegetables otherwise hurled at the team beaten by Caley Thistle and, in an environment which could barely have been more inappropriate for him yesterday, he displayed his gratitude with a busy performance. When the snow falling through the second half became suitably thick to warrant the introduction of an orange ball, it seemed the ideal device to help illuminate the 34-year-old's sure touch and distribution. He had a hand in the opening goal from Johan Mjllby deep in the second half, and the second from Viduka minutes later.
Earlier Mahe fired a dipping long-range shot towards goal which Rab Douglas had to dive low to push past his left-hand post. Then Moravcik gathered a pass from Morten Wieghorst and teased Lee Wilkie before smacking a left-foot shot just over the bar. Another of the Dundee central defenders, Steven Tweed, reacted sharply to block the rebound from a low Mark Viduka free-kick which Douglas did well to save as Celtic threatened an opener.
It came, finally, with only 23 minutes left. Douglas saved a deflected Ian Wright shot, but Moravcik's corner was flicked on by Mahe for Mjllby to meet the ball with a firm header. Two minutes later Moravcik played a through ball to Viduka on the left wing, from where he cut inside across the face of two defenders before slipping a low right-foot shot into the corner of Douglas's net from 25 yards.
Douglas was beaten again eight minutes from time when, having raced out to tackle the onrushing Mark Burchill, he could only watch as Colin Healy skilfully lofted the ball into his unguarded net from fully 35 yards. It was the 19-year-old Irishman's first Celtic goal, with his first touch of the match.
At one point, mischievous neutrals toyed with the idea that referee Bobby Orr might rob Celtic of their win by abandoning the game to the snow. It didn't happen – you might just have heard the uproar by now if it had – and eventually the whistle quietly sounded on the Celtic soap opera for another week.