SPL Saturday August 18th

Livingston 0

Celtic 0

Att: 10,000

MIB: Pooh Dallas

Celtic: Douglas; Mjallby (Tebily 19), Sutton, Boyd; McNamara, Sylla, Lambert, Lennon, Guppy (Thompson 67); Hartson, Larsson

One can only hope for better days to come after having watched a game with all the excitement of a wet Sunday in Stornaway.

With minds obviously on the home leg against Ajax, Celtic went through the motions against a Livingston side out to impress. The home side were typically robust in their challenges which must have brought a tear to the eye of Mr Hankie the refereeing Pooh, as memories of Airdrie flooded through a mist of red cards for the MIB.

The Hoops, missing Valgaeren, played with Sutton at the back while Hartson started up front with Larsson in a less than dynamic duo. Hartson did not look fit and failed to impress as he lumbered into the Livvy defence. Sylla and Guppy weren't far behind in the lacklustre stakes and things looked bleak when Mjallby was replaced by Tebily easrly in the first half.

The defence held and Celtic struggled through the game without really threatening.

Amazingly, despite the ubiquitous clogging. it took until 74 minutes before Pooh awarded a spot kick and sent someone to an early bath. The shock and disbelief was etched all over the Celtic players' faces, which may account for the penalty miss by Larsson. This had an element of farce as he nonchalantly struck the ball straight at the centre of the goal only to see it bounce off the toe of the diving keeper and go over the bar!

It just summed up the game and the place-Pish!