SPL Saturday September 13th

Dundee 0

Celtic 1

0:1 Balde (8)

Att: 10,647

MIB: Dougie McDonald

Celtic
Hedman
McNamara Balde Varga Crainey
Agathe Lennon Petrov Thompson
Larsson Hartson

subs
Miller for Crainey 25
Sylla for Hartson 54
Maloney for Petrov 78

The three points were won here thanks to a magnificent header by Bobo Balde but this is a game which was ruined by the ineptitude of match official Dougie McDonald, something that this particular example of Specsavers' finest has been gaining himself quite a reputation for in recent seasons.

It's not even that McDonald was blatantly favouring one team over the other. He spent most of his afternoon showing off his affliction to the nation live on TV with a mystifying array of bewildering decisions. His party piece came when he flourished a red card in Didier Agathe's direction. The Celtic player had been able to give Nacho Novo ten yards of start before haring after him like Alf Tupper on acid. Realising that his chance had gone, the Dundee man flopped to the deck which was McDonald's cue to put the mockers on what had been an entertaining enough 20 minutes.

Thereafter a reorganised Celtic got in some practice for the forthcoming joust with Bayern Munich in the Olympiastadion by defending in depth for most of the remainder of the match. Even when Crainey had to leave the field injured the back four looked comfortable throughout, although it has to be said that Caballero and Co. ain't no Roy Makaay.

If the Dundee forwards were unable to induce palpitations in the Celtic defence, Henrik Larsson certainly caused a few thrombies among the fans when he went down clutching his leg. Thankfully it turned out to be nothing more serious than cramp and the paramedics were able to cancel the call for reinforcements.

The other talking point to emerge from this one was the BBC director's unfortunate decision to focus on Neil Lennon just as the flame haired maestro was flicking the finger at the Cro-Magnon element of the Dundee support. 'I'd rather I was being written about than not written about', said the bold Neil in a newspaper interview printed on Sunday morning. Not only will he see plenty about himself in print, he'll probably hear the abuse going up a notch or two as well... and not just from the Dundee dunderheids either.