| Match Pictures | Matches: 1999 – 2000 | 1999-2000 Pictures |
Trivia
- Latest hat in the ring for the Head Coach position was Luis Fernandez then of Athletic Bilbao. Well-travelled Romanian coach Angel Iordanescu also claimed he had been contacted by Celtic with a view to taking the coach's job. His job as manager of Saudi side Al-Hilal was about to end.
- The pre-match Press Conference was again held at the CSA in London Rd.
- Riseth and Healy were restored to the squad. Viduka succumbed to the hamstring again and Kennedy and Petta dropped out.
Review
Dallas as the celebrity anti-Celtic referee again. Blind to Hearts offences and every Celtic foul got a yellow – or two in Lambert’s case. Hearts fought and scrapped and won the midfield battle with Dallas’ help. Injuries again came in to play.
Teams
Hearts:
Niemi, Pressley, Naysmith, Petric, Flogel, Cameron, Jackson, Makel (Simpson 87), Tomaschek, McSwegan (Wales 83), Adam (Fulton 83).
Subs Not Used: McKenzie, Severin.
Goals: McSwegan 36.
Celtic:
Gould, McNamara, Mjallby, Riseth, Petrov, Blinker (Healy 45), Berkovic (Burchill 45), Lambert , Wieghorst, Johnson (Rafael 56), Moravcik.
Subs Not Used: Kerr, Crainey.
Booked: Makel, Naysmith, Jackson (Hearts) Lambert, Blinker, Johnson, McNamara, Mjallby, Moravcik (Celtic)
Sent Off: Lambert (31) (Celtic)
Referee: Hugh Dallas (Scotland).
Attendance: 16,046
Articles
- Match Report (see below)
- Manager Interview
"It was a game too far for us and they looked a lot sharper than us. We've had three games in six days and it's taken a lot out of us.
"All credit to the players for the way they pushed forward with 10 men. They never gave up."
"I thought we had a good claim for a penalty in the last minute but the referee didn't see it that way."
"It's up to the referee to decide when a yellow card is warranted but Paul only had three tackles in the game and he was booked for two of them."
Pictures
Stats
| Hearts | Celtic | |
| Bookings | 3 | 6 |
| Red Cards | 0 | 1 |
| Fouls | 15 | 19 |
| Shots on Target | 12 | 3 |
| Corners | 5 | 7 |
| Offside | 5 | 2 |
Hearts in right temper
Scotland on Sunday 09/04/2000
By Andrew Smith AT TYNECASTLE
Hearts1 Celtic0
OFTEN this season, the means by which to counter Celtic has been simply to capitalise on their calamities. A Hearts side who looked positively measured in comparison to shapeless opponents were wise to the trick in deservedly coming out top in a scrap which produced only one goal, but a crime count more synonymous with Saughton Prison up the road.
Hugh Dallas dished out 10 yellow cards with a 7-3 split to the detriment of Celtic that included a pair shown to Paul Lambert, who was sent off for his second cautionable offence in the 32nd minute. From that point the game was up for a Celtic side who were lightweight and lost in midfield, and possessing little in the way of threat. Indeed, Hearts ought to have taken the three points by a more convincing margin; Gary McSwegan converted an opportunist strike having passed up the chance to make the most of two in a similar bracket minutes earlier.
The home side played their opponents like a fiddle, and simply opted for containment in the second period when Celtic's spirit was willing, but their ultimate response weak.
"That was as good as we've played all season," the Tynecastle manager Jim Jefferies remarked, and the motivation of cementing third place in the league and so setting up a UEFA Cup spot was obviously a strong one. But Kenny Dalglish disputed the notion that desire coursed through the home side more than was apparent in a drifting Celtic team. "That was a game too far for us, and Hearts were just a little sharper," observed Celtic's interim head coach of a week in which his team had already put Kilmarnock and Motherwell to the sword within their own environs.
The Glasgow club are a different prospect on unfamiliar soil, and there were passages of the first half during which Hearts threatened completely to overwhelm a visiting side creaking more than a hundred-year-old wardrobe door. The Tynecastle men were inspired: the visitors looked as if they'd been on sleeping pills.
Hearts quickly extricated themselves from a midfield clutter that had much to do with Celtic's odd formation. In the absence of the injured Mark Viduka, Tommy Johnson flew solo up-front with little or no support offered from Lubo Moravcik, Eyal Berkovic or anyone else in a five-man midfield that had no-one capable of the accomplished interventions to which we were treated from the delightful playmaker, Colin Cameron.
In the ninth minute, he smacked a volley on the run that was sumptuous, and required Jonathan Gould to be springheeled to claw it to safety. With the midfielder providing the craft and Darren Jackson scavenging away in typically-niggly fashion, Hearts imposed themselves and stretched a lumpen Celtic.
Berkovic was forced to feel the boot leather and bones of his opponents, a body check from Lee Makel in the 12th minute allowing Dallas to administer a yellow card in that irritating school-masterly way of his. Within six minutes he had brandished the same colour twice more, to Paul Lambert and Regi Blinker. The full significance of the Scotland midfielder's caution for impeding Jackson would kick in just after the half-hour mark when he committed a similar offence, prompting the yellow-plus-a-red knockout combination. Lambert, predictably, went ape, railing against referee and fourth official, and threatening to return to the scene as James Brown was wont to do in Harlem's Apollo Theatre.
The contact Lambert made on Jackson was minimal, more than can be said for Johnson's petulant checking of Steven Pressley. Yellow was the card this precipitated from Dallas. It might have been a shade of pink.
Earlier the striker had shown his better side with a flighty effort that almost deceived Antti Niemi, the Finnish keeper having to put on a spurt to shuffle across his line and beat the ball from under his crossbar. The encounter would have been even more harum-scarum for his counterpart Gould had McSwegan not passed up two golden opportunities midway through the first period, screwing a shot wide and then heading into the arms of the Celtic keeper after he had twice wriggled free of the visitors' defence.
Atonement arrived in the 36th minute, however, when a Lambertless and, therefore, basically-rudderless Celtic succumbed to the defensive fragility which, Johan Mjallby apart, had been evident through their back-line. An inswinging Jackson corner was the set-up, Blinker blocking a Gordan Petric header only for McSwegan to slam the follow-up over a congested goal-line.
The towsy element of the affair was never quite submerged, extending to a booking at half-time for Jackie McNamara. But the timidity of Celtic's second-half comeback was such that the principal cage-rattling was confined to Jackson and Moravcik squaring up to one another after the Slovakian went over the top on a challenge on the midfielder, only for the Celtic player to be booked for another rum tackle minutes later – and Mjallby remonstrating with Dallas to the point he had to be cautioned.
Remedial measures that led to Mark Burchill and Colin Healy being slung on in place of ineffectual Berkovic and Blinker certainly didn't make Celtic any worse. Burchill, indeed, forced a fine reflex block from Niemi, and the young striker at least looked lively. The same could not be said of that Brazilian enigma, Rafael, who joined the fray to replace the injured Johnson with little more than half-an-hour to go. But the time to judge the 4.8m purchase will be next season. And for Celtic supporters that cannot come quickly enough.