SENTINELCELTS

Morning,all.

Aye,we really did make heavy weather of that last night,didn’t we? Absolutely cruised the first half,and much of the opening exchanges of the second half,then we seemed to run out of steam. Of course,the fact that the new national sport of kick boxing continued its rise to prominence may have had something to do with it.

In the fact,the first bookings of the night came about right on half time  NOT because of this new-fangled kick boxing stuff,but a regression to the time honoured sport of wrestling,as Devlin pinned Jota to the ground in a blatant leg lock-sorry,I don’t know the technical term,but I’m going with a half Nelson here!

Unbelievably,Jota and Taylor were carded as well,and I honestly don’t know how Beaton could justify that. He will know fine well that in any other game,that is a borderline red-becoming red from his later antics-and the Celtic players involved get,at worst,a talking to. 

However,there was little anyone could do just before the half hour mark to stop us taking the lead. And what a goal it was! Reo picked up a loose ball just inside the Hearts half,took a couple of strides and unleashed a thunderbolt past Gordon from over thirty yards. Jota was in acres of space to the left,and screaming for it-but I reckon his reaction to the goal showed just how much of a team spirit AP has instilled already in this team. 

He celebrated it like he’d scored it himself!

And our latest Japanese pearl had a hand too in the second goal. Spotting O’Reilly loose on the right-the youngster had a fine debut,considering he’d only just met his new team mates-he gave him the chance to put an excellent low cross into the danger area. G-Mak got to it first in a three-way race with Souttar and Gordon,finishing it off with a sublime touch with the inside of his heel. 

G-Mak is looking more like the striker he was last season,and the one we expected to sign. That it hasn’t yet really come off for him yet is down to injury,and perhaps confidence. Being injury-free and scoring regularly will sort both of those problems. A year ago,he scored eleven goals in a month. Well,it’s February in less than a week,and he can make a good start to repeating that feat by putting three past the huns next week. 

In fact,if he fancies hitting all eleven in that game,I’ll maybe even let him have the rest of the month off. 

Second half,as I said earlier,we started well but couldn’t keep up the tempo. And with Beaton ensuring that Hearts still felt they could snap into a “tackle” they came back into it. They got one back just after the hour when Boyce scored from an offside position. To be fair,the linesman probably got G-Mark’s goal wrong too,even if the strongest proponent of VAR  could never argue that the latter was a clear and obvious error. Still,them’s the breaks and we have to deal with them.

Which we didn’t,not at all. Ten minutes later,Bitton and O’Reilly were caught playing the hokey-cokes in the box at a Hearts corner. Blinkin’ flip,even I’d have given a penalty for that one! Boyce stepped up,and was most unfortunate to see his penalty come off the inside off the post and spin across the goal without crossing the line. Still,them’s the breaks and Hearts have to deal with them. Which they didn’t,as our lads dug in,protected our lead and saw out the game to take a deserved three points. 

Tynecastle is rarely an easy place to go to for our team-or our support,come to that! Any victory there is a cause for celebration. I’ll make bloody sure I do some of that at the weekend,that’s for sure!

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Above article by BMCUWP