Celtic and Hibs served up a cracking afternoon’s entertainment in the driving rain at Celtic Park.
The conditions only added to the occaision which, as a football match, was a terrific advert for the Scottish domestic game.
Hibs had made just the one change from the side which drew 1-1 with Hearts in last weeks Edinburgh Derby with John Rankin replacing Frenchman Steven Thicot as Mixu Paatelainen made the brave decision to play three strikers in Colin Nish, Steven Fletcher and Derek Riordan who was making his first appearance against Celtic since his return to Easter Road on transfer deadline day.
The Hibees started brightly and had three decent opportunities to open the scoring.
Derek Riordan fired a free kick wide before forcing Artur Boruc into a magnificent save.
Riordan’s effort from outside the area took a slight deflection off Caldwell and Boruc twisted to his left to palm the ball to safety.
Colin Nish then found himself clear inside the penalty box but the big hitman stumbled over the ball at the wrong time and the opportunity was gone.
Celtic had not seriously threatened Yves Makalamby in the Hibs goal prior to taking the lead through captain Stephen McManus just after the half hour.
Shunsuke Nakamura took a free kick from the Celts right and after John Rankin’s fresh air swipe failed to clear the danger McManus fired home.
At that stage it was a barely deserved lead but in typical Celtic fashion they were two ahead just four minutes later.
McManus’ long ball found it’s way to Cilian Sheridan who raced through and rounded Makalamby to knock into an empty net.
The Hibs keeper made the job easy for the young hitman by commiting himself far to early and his powderpuff challenge for the ball ensured Mixu’s search for a new keeper will continue.
Hibs pulled one back in the 41st minute when Steven Fletcher ran in from the right and fired in a powerful effort which Nish deflected past the helpless Boruc.
The goal gave Hibs the belief required for the second half and the Easter Road men were level just five minutes into the period.
A fine flowing move saw Ian Murray release Colin Nish down the left flank and his cross eveded Boruc and Fletcher was on hand to fire home for a deserved equaliser.
Both sides were beginning to tire and Celtic replaced the largely anonymous Nakamura with Aiden McGeady while Mixu Paatelainen was happy enough with his side despite several of them looking fatigued.
Just as it looked as though both sides had ran out of ideas it was the home side who regained the lead through Glenn Loovens.
After Makalamby had pushed the ball round the post rather than hold onto it which was the easier option, the resultant corner saw Hibs fail to pick up the big defender who nodded home.
It was harsh on Hibs but things were to get worse with only 8 minutes remaining when Scott Brown played a neat one two with Scott McDonald and he fired low past the keeper.
Player Ratings
Yves Makalamby 4
Terrible handling and poor decisions all day long.
David Van Zanten 6
The subject of a terrible tackle from Scott McDonald which if it had been a Hibs player making the challenge would probably have been a red.
Lewis Stevenson 6
Competed well and showed better awareness
Sol Bamba 5
Kept in the side ahead of Hogg but struggled against Sheridan.
Rob Jones 6
Captain done well in difficult conditions – bailed out Bamba on a couple of occasions.
Ian Murray 7
Excellent midfield display from Murray. Kept it simple and rarely wasted a ball.
John Rankin 6
Good display despite miskick handing Celtic the opener.
Dean Shiels 5
Anonymous for most of the game once again
Derek Riordan 6
Possibly tried to hard to impress on Parkhead return. Couple of decent long rangers.
Steven Fletcher 8
Thorn in the Celtic defence’s side and caused them all sorts of problems.
Colin Nish 7
Ungainly hitman has his critics but produced a very good display scoring one and setting up the other.
Ref watch Calum Murray
Credit where it’s due Murray had a pretty decent game.
He did let the game flow where possible but got the McDonald decision wrong – the Aussie should have saw red rather than yellow for shocking challenge.
unlucky lads……..thought you were going to get something out of that for a while there…..
Come on Hibs, isn’t it time you lot took on and beat the Auld Firm?
unfortunate…. need to work on it ..especially at the back.
Unlucky =[ Gutted i am
Pretty good showing against the top club – tough.
It’s always a tough ask against the top side and I think you can be proud of your front line though you can’t say that about the man between the sticks.