Motherwell 2 Celtic 0: match report
Read a full match report of the Scottish Premier League game between Motherwell and Celtic at Fir Park on Sunday February 27, 2011.
See no evil: Neil Lennon cannot bear to watch his side's display Photo: PA
By Roddy Forsyth 2:46PM GMT 28 Feb 2011
The live broadcast of this encounter could have gone out under the banner of Who Do You Think You Are? – but it was Celtic’s character, not their ancestry, that was under scrutiny at Fir Park. The most important questions were posed at the start of each half, first when a horrible blunder by Charlie Mulgrew left his goalkeeper stranded and allowed John Sutton to sidestep Fraser Forster and turn the ball across the unguarded line.
Four minutes after the interval Sutton again planted the ball into the Celtic net, this time from a penalty kick awarded when Emilio Izaguirre was judged to have tumbled Keith Lasley inside the box, although there was a suspicion that the Motherwell midfielder had also kicked the ground. This immediately followed a Shaun Hutchinson header that cracked off the crossbar from a corner kick won when the Celtic defence was again caught leaden-footed.
To add to Celtic’s frustrations, when they did force openings they found Darren Randolph equal to the challenge. Three top-drawer saves, from Scott Brown, Anthony Stokes and Kris Commons, kept Neil Lennon’s players at bay and if Chris Humphreys had been as astute when he broke free with Sutton and Jamie Murphy unmarked and screaming for the ball inside the Celtic box, the damage would have been greater.
Yet if football was a game of simple consequences this would have been a no-contest before kick-off. Celtic travelled to Lanarkshire as the majestic masters of the previous Sunday’s 3-0 victory over Rangers, who themselves had drubbed Motherwell 6-0 a week earlier. Some, though, learn their lessons while others ignore warnings.
In this case Motherwell had discovered in unforgiving circumstances that laxity against one or other of the Old Firm sides is usually punished mercilessly. Celtic, meanwhile, had been warned that their derby triumph – glorious as it may have been – was no more than a shining artefact of the past and that every game is a new chapter.
Another capricious factor was the state of the pitch – which no amount of surgery seems to improve – and the ball’s random bounces were undoubtedly a factor in some of the more ungainly lunges that saw passes misplaced and opponents bruised. The poor surface undoubtedly favoured Motherwell more than Celtic, who rarely showed signs of breaking into fluency, but it also has to be said that the home team were regularly able to compose sweeping moves that caught the league leaders on the turn.
At any event, Lennon was not inclined to use the conditions as an excuse for his team’s failings. “We were poor,” the Celtic manager conceded.
“We started badly and never got a foothold at any time and you have to credit Motherwell for that. We gifted them two goals and we were poor defensively, poor in midfield and the same going forward.
“Maybe our players had nice things said about them this week and maybe they believed their own hype – not from the backroom staff, I might add - but perhaps that’s a lesson for them.
‘‘Every game is going to be tough from here on in and they’ll have to react to that, but I would also have to say that they’ve generally done that when it’s been required this season.
“From our point of view the first goal was awful and, at the second, Emilio was on the wrong side of their players, and whenever you make a challenge in those circumstances you’re asking for a foul or a penalty. We were poor and I’ve made that clear to the players but I’m not going to be too hard on them because I’m pretty sure we’ll play better than that.
“All the same, we can’t dismiss this. We’ll look at it, analyse it and sit down with the players collectively and individually and stress that it can’t happen again.”
If Celtic were reminded in salutary fashion that consistency is the key to a title challenge, it was also the case that Motherwell have been anxious about their see-sawing form, having recovered from their battering at Ibrox on Feb 12 to win against Aberdeen and Hamilton, only to unravel again in last Wednesday’s home defeat by St Mirren.
“We were very disappointed with our tempo and effort when we played St Mirren but those faults were remedied today,” said Stuart McCall. “We have to make sure that the same level of urgency and endeavour is there when we go to Inverness on Saturday.
“I looked at the clock when we scored the first goal and got a bit of a shock. I thought we had played 30 minutes but the game had only gone seven. I knew we would be in for a long afternoon and that Celtic would have their share of chances but our back line was wonderful and Randolph was in terrific form.
“Every player gave his all for the team and I said to them in the dressing room that they should go out tonight and enjoy themselves and then come back in this week and focus. The pitch helped us but I did say to the players not to try to play football in the wrong areas, where it could hurt us.
“We’ve got some crackers coming up. We play teams all around us in the league and we have a cup game that should be good, too. If we get a level of performance like that, everybody at this club will be delighted.”
And, for the record, this was Motherwell’s first home win over Celtic since May 22, 2005, an occasion which wrenched the title from Parkhead and despatched it to Ibrox. Whether or not the latest turn of events has the same effect remains to be seen, but Lennon has not discounted the likelihood of other surprises. “There will be twists in this story on both sides, I’m sure of that,” was the Celtic manager’s parting observation.
Match details
Motherwell (4-4-2): Randolph; Hateley, Hutchinson, Gunning, Hammell; Humphrey, Lasley, Jennings, Forbes (Pollock 75); Sutton, Murphy. Subs: Bradley (g), Saunders, Page, Casagolda, Jeffers, Meechan. Booked: Sutton, Lasley, Forbes, Jennings, Gunning.
Celtic (4-4-2): Forster; Wilson (Juarez 51), Majstorovic, Mulgrew, Izaguirre; Brown, Ki (Forrest 66), Ledley, Commons; Hooper, Stokes (Samaras 51). Subs: Zaluska (g), Loovens, Rogne, Murphy. Booked: Majstorovic.
Referee: E Norris.
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