2018-08-11: Hearts 1-0 Celtic, SP

Trivia

• Celtic back to the league after the 1-1 at home to AEK Athens first leg in European Cup qualifiers.
• Celtic lose first game in the season. Are Celtic mentally tired? Possibly.
• Some players rested due to the upcoming AEK Athens game.
• Some disgraceful behaviour from Hearts players. Including: Screaming over a Celtic player lying on the ground and kicking one when on the ground. Lots of hacking and the ref was biased/bottler/incompetent etc etc.
• Boyata didn't play, his agent has been in the papers and is causing headaches. Appears to be all terminal now. Is Boyata going to Seville or waiting till January to sign a contract with Seville.
• Brendan Rodgers says his time as Celtic manager will be finished if he is unable to pursue his ambitions to build on the success he has already enjoyed at the club. In a week when strains in his relationship with the Celtic board over their current transfer policy have emerged, Rodgers has again warned against complacency setting.
• Brendan Rodgers denies that he's frustrated and will be leaving Celtic.
• One of Scotland’s oldest Catholics has received two papal blessings after celebrating her 100th birthday. Mima Heaney (pictured right), a member of St Luke’s Church in Bonnybridge, credited bingo, Irn Bru and chips as the secret to a long life, after receiving her two blessings from her parish and her children.

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Hearts 1 – 0 Celtic: Kyle Lafferty’s strike downs stuttering Celtic

At times there was badger-baiting levels of brutality on show at Tynecastle. Ultimately, dogged Hearts bared their teeth just that bit more ravenously to leave Celtic “licking their wounds”, as Brendan Rodgers so aptly put it afterwards.

Levein acknowledged that the confrontation in Gorgie being sandwiched between the two legs of Celtic’s third round qualifier probably played for them, with Rodgers making five changes from midweek. The Champions League is worth “a hell of a lot more money to them than beating Hearts in a league game,” the Hearts manager said. “I’m absolutely positive he was confident he could do both.”

But Hearts did not let that happen. Aside from a Leigh Griffiths effort cleared off the line in 45 minutes that brought a twist-in-the-turf hamstring injury for Christophe Berra, in the rough and tumble of the first period, they should have had a penalty when Jozo Simunovic pushed Steven Naismith, and they demonstrated an appetite for the fray Celtic struggled to suppress. That was especially true of Uche Ikpeazu, the biggest of big units, who gave Simunovic a torrid time.

The Croatian hardly helped himself, and with Celtic having seemed to begin the second period on the front foot, a ball played straight to Olly Lee led to the decisive moment. The midfielder fed Ikpeazu down the right and his precise cutback was pounced on by Lafferty. Without breaking stride, the Northern Irish international met the ball first-time with the outside of his left foot and sent it whizzing into the bottom left-hand corner of Craig Gordon’s net.
Levein’s men never yielded thereafter, despite Rodgers throwing on his big hitters in Odsonne Edouard, Tom Rogic and James Forrest. The fitness levels and fierce competitive spirit that the Hearts manager made it his mission over the summer to ramp up shone through. Another vindication of their summer activities lay in the fact that Lafferty’s contribution was only made possible by the decision to rebuff a £200,000 offer from Rangers for the forward.
“I just don’t think the bid valued Kyle at any level,” Levein said on that. “He scored 19 goals for us last season, three against Celtic. That’s another one against Celtic, so in these games, in particular, that would tell you he’s a valuable asset.”
Hearts have the assets and the aggression to make their home surrounds invaluable. Their success today put them top of the table after two games and could leave Celtic in uncharted territory for the Rodgers regime in putting them midtable. The fact that Celtic’s defeat comes in the middle of a three-game run across seven days could not be an “excuse”, said the Parkhead manager, regardless of how “tough” that schedule might be.

“I think it was a close game,” the Irishman said. “I felt that we coped with the physicality very well. Coming here you know that Craig’s teams are physical and get the ball up early but I thought we coped with that really well. We played with a calmness in the first half and then created one or two chances. Obviously when you cope with the physicality you don’t expect to give the ball away in your build-up play. That was our disappointment.
“Under no pressure we give it away and, in fairness to Kyle Lafferty, it was a really, really good finish, but we still had some time to create problems for them but we never really were clean enough in the final third of the pitch so you end up losing a really tight game. But congratulations to Hearts, they get their victory and we have to lick our wounds and move on.”

BBC