Celtic 1-0 Inverness: Neil Lennon hits out over sending off
Joe Ledley scores
IT WAS supposed to be about the 100, but you could shave a zero off that to tell the story of the day.
As expected, Neil Lennon brought up his century of games with yet another victory. However, the real animation sparked in the Celtic manager, his team and the home crowd, centred on the fact that the Scottish Premier League leaders were reduced to ten men for the final half hour of their 17th consecutive domestic win.
Celtic were anything but comfortable in extending that faultless sequence. A fact less to do with Daniel Majstorovic’s dismissal than the energy and endeavour of Inverness, who also had to cope with a sending off, losing Steve Williams to a second bookable offence in 78 minutes. Before that, the visitors were transformed from the compliant cup losers of a week ago.
After his team’s 14th straight league win that a Joe Ledley’s sweetly constructed early goal earned them, Lennon, too, was transformed from the conciliatory figure he has become in his second full season as Celtic manager. He was back on the case of officials as was his wont last term, and with some justification.
Majstorovic might have been slow to react to the lurking presence of Jonny Hayes when the ball broke back towards Celtic’s own penalty box but eventually he appeared to make a legitimate, if rushed, tackle on the winger. Hayes claimed for nothing and it seemed referee Steven McLean was reluctant to call up the Swede for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity, appearing to do so on the advice of an impassive stand-side assistant Stuart Macaulay.
“I thought he got the ball,” said Lennon, who expects his club to lodge an appeal against the red card on a day he stated his team “had to contend with a few things, including the officials”.
“How the linesman could give it is beyond me. And there were some very inconsistent decisions throughout. I don’t think the referee got much help from either of his linesmen. I have seen it on the TV and it is pretty inconclusive either way but it looks like Daniel’s got the ball. Hayes is coming in from left to right position, if he gets a touch the ball should go to the right. But it doesn’t, it goes straight. So a very debatable decision has gone against us. [The media has] been making a lot about the decisions that have gone for us the last couple of weeks. It will be interesting to see the outcome of the reports on that one.”
Celtic’s star witness in defence of Majstorovic is Hayes himself. “I thought he was unlucky to be sent off, and said that to him,” the Irishman said. “My initial reaction was just to go back into my position and I thought he got the ball. We had those decisions go against us a few times this season and it is not nice.”
Inverness manager Terry Butcher declared “bollocks” to the suggestion such things even themselves out, citing four red cards they have suffered in the Majstorovic mould.
He was red-faced with rage about his team failing to capitalise on their one-man advantage. We won’t get a better chance to take something from Celtic Park than today,” he said. “We haven’t done enough with the extra man to get the equaliser.”
One Inverness player did do enough. Hayes whipped in two or three great crosses that should have allowed Nick Ross to at least test Fraser Forster but, in praising his players for their attitude, Lennon noted his keeper didn’t have a save to make.
The Celtic manager described Georgios Samaras as “gigantic” in “leading the line”, “going in for every challenge” and “every header” when his team went down to ten men.
Butcher, meanwhile, was curiously sour about the Greek’s part in the numbers being evened up. There seemed no doubt about the second caution meted out to Williams after Samaras bamboozled the defender at the corner flag and was crudely taken out for his trouble. The Inverness manager, though, somehow had a beef with the decision, or more specifically the Celtic player at the centre of it. The same player he described suffered “assault by fingernail” when Greg Tansey received a red card later rescinded at Inverness in November.
“My own player had already been booked, already been warned and he leaves a leg and Samaras is in the incident and gets one of my players sent off again. That’s good, isn’t it? Maybe it’s coincidence Samaras is involved and my player gets booked and sent off.” Asked if he was blaming Samaras, Butcher shot back: “I’m not blaming him I’m just saying he was involved in the incident. Just stating the fact. You can draw your own conclusions.”
It was a strange second half that followed from a curious first period. As Butcher acknowledged, Inverness possessed more threat and demonstrated greater impetus within quarter of an hour of it than in the entire 90 minutes of their 2-0 Scottish Cup defeat to the same opponents the previous weekend.
Celtic, meanwhile, played in only fits and starts. But, in one of those fits they produced a sleek, smartly engineered goal. It began with Samaras heading down to Adam Matthews on the left. The Welshman, in turn, picked out Scott Brown, and the captain’s vision and new-found eye for a defence-splitting pass was evidenced by him picking out James Forrest. The winger intelligently checked his run and options before sliding over a low cross that Joe Ledley steamed in at the back post to tuck away.
Celtic Park erupted. However, the crowd’s reaction to another example of finesse from a team that is proving unstoppable and, with their current run remarkably approaching the 19-game, 2001-02 modern-day domestic win record run by Martin O’Neill’s Celtic, was not to praise them. It was to give it laldy about the possible demise of Rangers. In being able to barrack the officials by the close of proceedings, it must have been a rabid fan’s day in paradise.
Never mind that their own players deserve lauded to the high heavens.
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Sunday 27 May 2012
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