Celtic v Hearts

Bank Of Scotland SPL

Saturday 16^th October 2004

Celtic Park, Glasgow

Kick Off 3pm

In a week where we were forced to watch two dire Scotland performances, we can finally turn our attention away from the international scene. Celtic will face Hearts at Celtic Park tomorrow. The less said about Scotland the better.

Celtic v Hearts has been a fixture with a fairly explosive recent past. Members of the Hearts support are constantly showing themselves up when we play them, and our treatment on the park hasn’t been great either. Last season at Tynecastle, there seemed to be a witch-hunt against Neil Lennon, which saw a Hearts player sent off late in the game. When Lennon went down injured, there were thousands of cheers from the Hearts end. That just about sums them up.

Hearts are doing well this season, but despite being fifth in the SPL, they are constantly referred to as “the third force” in Scottish football. They have qualified for the UEFA Cup but will probably get humped in every game. Here’s hoping.

Tomorrow will be a tricky game. Hearts took two points off of us at the tail-end of last season when the league was already won. We will have to fight for everything, as we are playing a very dirty team. I would like an early goal to settle things down, and hopefully we could progress and get a few more.

Our last game was an easy win at Tannadice. We are playing well domestically and I think we should have no problems tomorrow. We have no fresh injury worries and are likely to start with Juninho, Camara and Sutton. Let’s go for goals.

With a trip to Shaktar looming on Wednesday, we need a good result and a good performance tomorrow. The game will be tough but we are The Bhoys and we fear no one.

Come On The Hoops!