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Paddy McCourt- genius at work

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The build up to the match was all about Anthony Stokes and Daryl Murphy but it was another Irishman, the magical Paddy McCourt, that sent the Celtic fans home with something to talk about.

Other players can huff and puff for 90 minutes, demonstrate that they have a good engine and all the rest but for the crowd of almost 50,000 at Celtic Park today 13 minutes of magic from the Derry Pele were priceless.

As soon as he came onto the park McCourt looked a cut above the rest of the players on show and capped his cameo with a brilliant injury time goal to mark his first goal at Celtic Park.

True he did misplace one ball that went out for a throw-in but other than that every little thing he did was magic as the fans, including Rod Stewart and Billy Connolly, hung on his every touch.

Even in defence the former Derry City man was sublime. Tracking back with a Hearts defender bearing down he ignored the obvious back-pass for Fraser Foster to hoof clear to deliver a brilliant 40 yard cross field ball to Cha Du Ri without even having to look up.

In golf terms it was the 5-iron that we all dream of striking that is perfectly measured, bumping up at the front of the green and rolling perfectly to single-putt range.

Just before his goal McCourt had sent through a perfectly weighted ball to Georgios Samaras whose unconvincing side footed effort was easily held by goalkeeper Marian Kello.

As the clock struck 90 McCourt created a chance out of nothing and it can only be a matter of time before it features on The Paddy McCourt Story dvd.

Like so many of the goals that he scored for the reserves in the distant days of Celtic TV this was another classic amongst classics.

Picking up a nothing pass from Samaras on the left flank and 40 yards from goal the Celtic substitute edged forward at his own pace before a flick of his right foot took Darren Barr out of the equation.

Sensing danger Ismael Bouzid hesitated as McCourt approached him at the edge of the box with another deft touching leaving only Kello between yer man and his first home goal.

The Hearts keeper panicked, went to ground and with the cutest of touches McCourt effortlessly lifted the ball up and over Kello to drop into the net.

It was the icing on the cake of another impressive Celtic performance although as Neil Lennon is the first to admit there is still a long way to go.

Two seasons of pedestrian possession have been replaced with an explosion of pace, Paddy excepted.

Starting with James Forrest on the right and Emilio Izaguirre at left-back there was variety to Celtic’s play rather than a dependence on Aiden McGeady.

Throughout the match midfielders and forwards switched positions regularly with a dozen scoring chances created, and largely passed up.

There will be plenty of controversy over Celtic’s first half goals which were both borderline offside decisions.

Having watched them again a few times on Channel 67 it’s impossible to call either goal. From the angle of the camera and that of the assistant referee both decisions were borderline.

Overall there were decisions that went for and against Celtic. At neither goal was there a clear offside, the assistant gets a snapshot if he’s lucky to make a decision- unless he’s 100% sure that a player is offside the flag stays down.

If the assistant had flagged offside against either of the Celtic goals he could well have kept his flag down at some of the other occasions.

With full points and four clean sheets to show for their efforts in the SPL it’s been an impressive start to the domestic season for Neil Lennon’s side.

There are plenty of rough edges and areas to work on but with a reliable goalkeeper, Forster, a commanding central defender, Daniel Majstorovic and a promising left-back in Emilio Izzaguirre TEAM LENNON is starting to come together and take shape.

For the first time this season Lennon will have a full week of training with his squad at Lennoxtown.

A Europa League tie would have been preferred but another clean sheet and convincing win next Sunday at Kilmarnock will go some way towards compensating for that horrible night in Utrecht.

U-19’s overcome Hearts to stay top

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0 comments

  • Joe says:

    I don’t get all the garbage of “offside” goals! Neither goal was offside!

    Don’t you know the rules?

    That said, we had two perfectly good goals disallowed by disgraceful calls by the linesman. We also had two one on one attacks stopped by equally bad calls?

    Maloney should have scored four goals and Sammy, for all he didn’t even play a full half should have had three goals too.

    This was the biggest one sided game against Hearts I ever saw? No-one could have complained had we won by seven or eight goals, so many were goal chances.

  • kidders says:

    i wouldn’t bunch him next to stokes and murphy nationally – mccourt is northern irish, not ‘another irishman’. maybe i’m being picky, who cares actually. hail hail

  • timbhoy2 says:

    Celtic were very good yesterday, Hearts very poor. Jeffries should have no complaints, in all honesty the hoops should have won 6-o

  • Lennondinho18 says:

    I love Paddy McCourt

    He is the most exciting Celtic player that I have ever seen

    in terms of our squad he is easily:

    the best passer
    the best dribbler
    the best finisher

    gon yersel Paddy

  • Glasgay1 says:

    Jefferies never gives Celtic any credit but always gives praise castle greyskulls 11

  • Max says:

    Jeffries said the ref spoke to him like a three year old kid, well Jim if you throw wee footstamping tantrums like a three year old wee lassie…………

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