SPL Sunday January 22nd

Motherwell 1

Celtic 3

0:1 Zurawski 17
1:1 Hamilton 41
1:2 McGeady 71
1:3 Hartson 85

Att: 11,503

MIB: Charlie Richmond

Celtic: Boruc Telfer Virgo Varga Camara Nakamura Lennon Petrov Maloney Zurawski Hartson
subs
McGeady forNakamura 62
Pearson for Zurawski 74

All the talk before the game concerned who would comprise this afternoon's Sieve. In the end, the unlikely combination forced on WGS through a variety of circumstances performed as well as any Celtic defence has done in the last few months, with Virgo finding himself Man of the Match at the end.

Zurawski kept up his impressive scoring rate with the opener, and just when it looked as if it might be a fairly tame half-time in the away end, Jim Hamilton scored the goal of his life to give us the yips once again. It was like watching a horse in a field suddenly perform a burst of the Riverdance then resuming his normal life as a horse; that's how unbelievable it was.

The points were secured thanks to the kind of bold substitution that makes your reputation as a manager - Naka off, Aiden on. Within 25 minutes young McGeady showed us a glimpse of the future, scoring one himself (a deflection but we'll take it), jinking past two attempted amputations to set up Hartson for the third then hitting the crossbar after some more sublime skill.

A really vital three points and two home games coming up.