CIS Cup semi-final Wednesday February 1st

Motherwell 1

Celtic 2

1:0 Foran 11
1:1 Zurawski 29
2:1 Maloney 88

Att: 32,595

MIB: Craig Thompson

Celtic: Boruc Virgo McManus Varga Camara Nakamura Petrov Lennon Maloney Zurawski Hartson
subs
Thompson for Nakamura 65
Pearson for Camara 72
Keane for Virgo 89

A bit of a pyrrhic victory at a half empty Hampden as a deflated Celtic performance against a pumped up Motherwell side almost ends in tears. But for an 'I saved Kennedy' moment from Boruc and a defensive cock-up worthy of Celtic from Motherwell's Martyn Corrigan, Celtic were out on their arses.

Boruc set the tone for the night when he missed an early cross to gift Ritchie Foran an open goal. This must have been a bit of a shock to the 'Well, who were carving up Celtic down the right faster than the Govan stand emptying on the back of a Hartson goal.

Only McBride and McDonald, crowding each other like over-eager schoolboys, saved Celtic from conceding a second, as the Sieve were posted missing.

It took almost a full half hour before Maloney managed to split the 'Well defence and give Celtic a decent chance. Zurawski collected on the run and coolly finished.

Motherwell, however, hadn't read the script and instead of Celtic settling down to kill the game, it was panic stations as the gnome-like MacDonald out-jumped McManus to head on target.

The second period was even poorer fare, as Celtic failed to get out of second gear. Motherwell came closer and closer to a second, and eventually only a superb stop from Boruc on 84 minutes prevented Kerr from getting a winner.

With the fans ready to throw themselves from the upper tiers of the stand in mass human sacrifice and perhaps with a sympathy vote from on high, Corrigan answered Celtic's prayers with a high pass back that forced the keeper to concede an indirect free kick in the box. With the Butcher boys paraded on the goal line like the traditional line-out in the Govan Police station after a game at the Death Star, up stepped Maloney to pick out the net.

This was a win, no matter the form, and a cup final against Dunfermline beckons.

Could it get any worse? Well this is Celtic under Strachan!

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For those who haven't quite put their finger on the big difference between the management style of WGS and MON here was the ultimate demonstration. If this game had been played under MON he would have entered the press conference after the game and basically praised his team for reaching a final, probably noting that in a semi it's the result and not the performance that matters (whether he would say the same thing the next day to the team is another matter).

WGS on the other hand left no one in any doubt about how he felt. Personally I think the support prefers WGS method to MON. We know we were poor, he knows we were poor and the team definitely know it.

That said if we had to pick a team that we would steal (boom, boom) a victory from, denying them a cast iron chance of a first trophy in more than 10 years then we couldn't have chosen a more deserving candidate. Having gifted them a lead thanks to Boruc's poor attempts to claim the ball we huffed and puffed top no great avail until finally Maloney remembered that he is a very good footballer, threading a superb pass to Magic - 1-1.

The second half was real horror show stuff. Any invention or creation didn't come from Celtic and even the winning goal was partly down to Motherwell self destructing; why a player would try a pass back like that was beyond everyone. But Maloney kept his head and curled the ball nicely in to the top corner to send us into the final and the media into a frenzy of stories about how bad Celtic are.