Hartson’s second-half brace puts Celtic back on top

Celtic 2 Aberdeen 0

Rangers again tested the nerves of their Glasgow rivals by beating Hearts at Ibrox on Saturday to return to the summit. But after a tense first half, Wales star Hartson pounced twice in the second 45 minutes of Celtic’s final home game of the season.

The outcome means Celtic climb back above Rangers and take a two-point lead into the last two rounds of SPL matches, while Aberdeen’s loss meant there was cause to celebrate for Hibernian, who are now within a point of guaranteeing third place and a UEFA Cup slot.

Celtic manager Martin O’Neill was delighted by Hartson’s performance and purred: “John is a goal-scorer and he has scored a lot of goals for us.

“Naturally the first goal was vitally important and we could have scored a few more today but he has enjoyed playing with Chris (Sutton), who was terrific.”

Rangers put the heat on with victory over Hearts at Ibrox but O’Neill was just glad to come through another anxious afternoon after last week’s shock home defeat to Hibernian which let Alex McLeish’s men back into the championship race.

“It was a great effort and there were some big performances today,” O’Neill enthused.

“We saw it through and we won the game, which is what we set out to do. It was nail-biting for a long, long time but we deserved to win.”

The Celtic supporters, who heeded their manager’s calls for more encouragement, did not need reminding that the last time Aberdeen came to Celtic Park they raced into an early two-goal lead only for Craig Bellamy to complete a stunning comeback just last month.

Hearts and Hibernian claimed famous wins here recently so it was no surprise to see O’Neill celebrating the fact it was goalless at the break.

He concluded: “In the recent past we have tended to be 1-0 or 2-0 down after 20 minutes so I think there was a whoop of delight to see it was still 0-0. When we played Aberdeen before we had a mountain to climb being 2-0 behind so we were trying to avoid that.

“But we had a lot of pressure and we managed to break though in the second half and win the match.”

Aberdeen manager Jimmy Calderwood has confirmed that defender Russell Anderson is facing another lengthy spell on the sidelines with medial ligament damage.

Kevin McNaughton also sustained ligament damage although it is not understood to be as bad as that of his demoralised team-mate.

CELTIC: Douglas, McNamara, Varga, Balde, Laursen (Beattie 45), Agathe, Petrov, Lennon, Thompson, Hartson, Sutton.

ABERDEEN: Esson, McNaughton (Blaha 65), Diamond, Anderson, Severin, Hart, Considine (Dempsey 67), Mackie, Byrne (Winter 83), Muirhead, Clark.

Referee: J Underhill (Scotland).