The Huns drew 0-0 at Motherwell in yesterday's lunch-time kick-off and that should have been a great motivation to the home side as they took the field at Celtic Park but it was the Tannadice side that struck first when striker David Goodwillie scored in just six minutes. Celtic equalised soon after when Scott McDonald headed in from a Danny Fox free-kick and it looked like Celtic would go on to victory in this compelling match - and they would have collected all three points were it not for the assistant mason, er, assistant referee, incorrectly calling offside on a perfectly legitimate Georgios Samaras goal just on the hour mark.
Manager Mowbray felt that the international week had impacted directly on the performance of his team against a fresh United side. "I think they're a decent side." he said "They have good athleticism and energy in their team. We always knew it was going to be a difficult game. We've had 15 players away all across the world, they haven't a single player away and they've had two weeks to prepare for it so it was always going to be a tough day for us. I thought the players showed a fantastic attitude and kept going right to the death. Samaras's goal looks like a good goal, and a handball that mystified the whole stadium - but there you go, that's football."
The Celtic boss refused to criticise referee Conroy despite his belief that those key decisions went against his side. "The linesman put his flag up for offside for the disallowed goal," said the manager. "I've watched it on television. You watch it and make up your own mind. On the hand ball, I don't know. The referee didn't think it was a hand ball." said Mowbray in answer to questions put to him by the press. "What are you trying to do to me? Get me into trouble?" he laughed. "No, the referee makes his decisions and we have to abide by them."
"We're disappointed not to win." concluded Mowbray. "But the boys put in a fantastic shift and it was a great effort. We played a decent, energetic and disciplined team today and not making any excuses but we had 15 players playing two international games across the world in the last week and they had none. A draw was a fair result."