Posts Tagged ‘Hibernian’

Celtic’s Boruc out for three weeks after surgery

• Injured goalkeeper lined up for Tannadice return
• Rangers ‘getting back to the way we are capable of playing’

Celtic’s goalkeeper Artur Boruc has undergone knee surgery which will keep him out for at least three weeks. The Poland international has missed Celtic’s last three matches with a thigh injury, so the club decided to put him in for the operation to fix an ongoing problem.

The surgery took place after Celtic were granted permission by Uefa to involve the back-up goalkeeper Dominic Cervi for the Europa League match in Hamburg on Thursday. The American was not in Celtic’s 25-man squad for the competition but he will be on the bench in Germany as Lukasz Zaluska continues in goal.

Celtic’s manager, Tony Mowbray, said: “We would not have agreed to Artur having the operation if the clearance for Dominic had not been granted. Now the hope is Artur will be back in time for the league game against Dundee United in three weeks.”

Boruc will definitely miss the Premier League trip to Falkirk on Sunday and the match at Tannadice on 22 November is Celtic’s next game after that. Celtic lead the Premier League by three points from Hibernian, with Rangers a further point back with a game in hand after their match at Dundee United was abandoned at half-time on Sunday because of a waterlogged pitch.

The Rangers midfielder Steven Davis, who had scored the only goal at Tannadice before the abandonment, believes his team are returning to top form – just in time for their crucial Champions League game against Unirea Urziceni on Wednesday.

The Scottish champions slumped to an embarrassing 4-1 defeat to the Romanians at Ibrox a fortnight ago and results in the Premier League have been far from inspiring, with four draws in their last six games.

Walter Smith’s men now have the opportunity to make amends when they travel to Bucharest to face Unirea in a match which can either resurrect their qualification campaign or all but end any hopes of progressing to the knockout stages.

Rangers were held to a 1-1 draw against Hibernian last week but produced one of their best performances of the season against the Edinburgh club. “I think we are getting back to the way we are capable of playing,” said Davis. “I think we are working harder off the ball as well, pressing teams and making it more difficult for them. We have shown that in the last couple of games, but we have to keep that improvement going because there is still a lot of room to improve as a team.”

Rangers suffered plenty of criticism in the wake of their thrashing by Unirea and Davis admits the importance of tomorrow’s game cannot be overemphasised. “It’s a massive game for us,” he said. “If we are to have any chance of qualifying, we need to go out there and get the win.

“But we know from playing them that they are a well organised team and a good side. Hopefully a bit of luck will go our way and we can go there and get a result.”

Davis will no doubt be looking for a change of luck personally, after missing from the penalty spot against Dan Petrescu’s team at Ibrox, before wrongly believing he had opened his account for the campaign against United.

He said: “It was my first goal of the season – although it’s not now. It’s just very disappointing and frustrating. Having missed a penalty as well, it would have been nice to get the goal. But I have to get my head around that and look ahead to the next game.” PA

Rangers 4-1 Hamilton

Rangers strode virtually unchallenged back to the top of the Scottish Premier League and, barring a wide-margin victory for either Hibernian or Celtic when those two meet at Easter Road today, the champions are likely to remain there.

The Ibrox side’s ascendancy was made on the back of goals from Steven Whittaker and Kris Boyd, each having delivered a brace, but their general superiority over largely hapless Hamilton Academical made the contest something of a mismatch. By the time Mark McLaughlin scored a consolation with a late header from a corner kick, the stadium was almost empty.

Visits to venues such as Ibrox by teams like Hamilton almost invariably carry undertones of damage limitation, and this latest example of the genre conformed precisely to the convention.

The Lanarkshire side demonstrated hardly any inclination to operate in the vicinity of the home goalkeeper, Allan McGregor, seemingly preferring to swarm in numbers in front of their own, Tomas Cerny, in an attempt to minimise Rangers’ score.

It was an approach that simply encourages champions to flex their muscles, and Rangers had bullied their opponents into submission before a third of the match had been completed. What is also common to these occasions is that the odds-on favourites will get their goals cheaply. The two with which Whittaker and Boyd sent the Ibrox side on their way could be called complimentary.

David Weir began the move for the first with a pass to Steven Davis in the inside-right position and while the midfielder’s low through ball to Whittaker was admirably measured, the full-back did not meet a challenge as he strode into the area on the right and drilled the ball low into the far corner.

If the Hamilton defenders were guilty of lethargy then, they were quite shocking in the way they conceded the second. Kenny Miller tried to raid on the left, but was dispossessed by Martin Canning. In his pathetic attempt at a clearance, the right-back simply passed the ball straight to Stevie Naismith. His cross was headed into the air and looped towards Boyd, who did not even have to jump as he sent a free header dropping over Cerny.

In truth, Rangers should have been even further ahead, but a number of players, notably Miller and Davis, had squandered earlier opportunities. This failure to convert their superiority during that oppressive period seemed to encourage Hamilton in a second half in which they were appreciably more ambitious.

There was only the occasional moment of menace in the Rangers defence, but it was enough to create a pleasing difference in the visitors’ performance and give their small coterie of supporters something to cheer.

James McArthur tested McGregor with a drive to the goalkeeper’s near post from the left side of the box after he had coasted past Madjid Bougherra with some slick footwork. That moment came soon after Derek Lyle had forced the goalkeeper to scramble a save at the same post with a low, curling free-kick from the left.

While those episodes might have lifted the spirits of the visitors, however, they also prefaced a raising of tempo and pressure by the home side, who would double their advantage within a few minutes, as Boyd and Whittaker each grabbed a second goal.

Boyd’s came from a powerful left-foot drive after Naismith had bolted down the left and played a perfectly-measured cut-back, and Whittaker played a 1-2 with Davis before beating Cerny with a curling, left-foot drive from 22 yards.

Redknapp targets move for Celtic’s Brown

• Celtic want to keep Brown for Champions League qualifier
• Scotland international likely to cost around £8m

Harry Redknapp is considering a move for Celtic’s Scott Brown, as he ponders how to add muscle and energy to his midfield following the sale of Didier Zokora to Sevilla.

The Tottenham Hotspur manager, in his second transfer window at the club, is satisfied at how his squad has taken shape but he said if he could “find any player to improve us, I would do it”.

Redknapp has been linked with a bid for Toulouse’s highly-rated 19-year-old midfielder Moussa Sissoko, who is of interest to a host of clubs and, as such, would not come cheaply. Toulouse rate him at £15m. Brown, however, would cost in the region of £8m. The 24-year-old Scotland international joined Celtic for £4.4m from Hibernian in 2007 and he has become a key figure for club and country, winning plaudits for his box-to-box style.

Celtic need Brown for their upcoming Champions League qualifying tie against Arsenal, the second-leg of which is on 26 August, days before the closure of the transfer window.

Mowbray admits strained relationship

• New Celtic manager expected cost cutting at West Bromwich
• Hints at difficult relationship with Baggies’ chairman

Tony Mowbray admitted that a “strained” relationship with the West Bromwich Albion chairman, Jeremy Peace, helped push him towards Parkhead. Mowbray, who has signed a 12-month rolling contract to fill the vacancy left by Gordon Strachan at Celtic, was facing cost cutting had he remained at the Championship club.

Mowbray, who led Albion to the Championship title in 2008 only for them to finish bottom of the Premier League in May, said: “While I have huge respect for the chairman at West Bromwich Albion, the way he runs his club, there were one or two instances that left me with the feeling that, if the right opportunity came along it was something I needed to explore.

“At the level we were working at, in the Premier League, the relationship between the chairman and manager can become strained, particularly when you are in the predicament we were in. As the Premier League season unfolds the true personalities of people come out, I think.”

Faced with having to take Albion through a promotion challenge again, Mowbray felt the time was right to return to Celtic, where he played for four years. “In my own mind, it wasn’t a cycle I wanted to repeat; going through that expectation of trying to get promotion again,” he said. “The next year for me at West Brom would have been promotion or out, I would suggest.”

The fact that a healthy band of supporters braved atrocious conditions in Glasgow to hail Mowbray’s arrival suggests he will be a popular successor to Strachan, who was never fully embraced.

Mowbray’s philosophy of attacking football began with Hibernian, though he was yesterday keen to stress such tactics will not be at the expense of a winning mentality. “For me, this is a bit of a fallacy that has cropped up because it is a nice little story line,” he said.

“At West Brom we won a championship, the first time the club had done that for 88 years so it is not as if my teams don’t win. I have no patent on trying to play passing football. I am portrayed as this guy who is only interested in passing football; I am not. I’m genuinely interested in being successful and giving the supporters joy from the elation of winning football matches.”

His first test arrives within six weeks, Celtic facing the first of two potential qualifying rounds for the Champions League. “We have nothing to fear there,” the new manager said. “We have to be ready for them and to make sure we are in the right frame of mind.”

Rangers’ Bougherra free to play in SPL title decider

• Decision boosts Rangers’ last-day title challenge
• Charlie Mulgrew’s red in same game also downgraded

Madjid Bougherra is set to play in Rangers’ championship decider against Dundee United on Sunday after the red card he picked up during last week’s 2–1 win over Aberdeen was downgraded to a yellow by a Scottish Football Association review panel.

Bougherra will therefore be available to travel to Tannadice, where victory for Rangers would secure their first title in four years at Celtic’s expense.

Aberdeen’s appeal against the dismissal of Charlie Mulgrew in the same game was also addressed by the review panel, who met this morning. The former Celtic player also had his red card reduced to a yellow and he will now be free to play against Hibernian at Pittodrie.

The Rangers striker Kyle Lafferty, who was fined by the Ibrox club for play-acting in the incident which led to Mulgrew being sent off, will have to defend an “alleged act of simulation” by the SFA’s disciplinary committee after the review panel decided he had a case to answer.

For the dismissals of Bougherra and Mulgrew, the referee Stuart Dougal issued red cards on the advice of his assistant, Graham Chambers, but it was the referee who was asked by the SFA to reconsider the decisions after both clubs lodged appeals.

Meanwhile, the Celtic defender Glenn Loovens will also face the disciplinary committee as will his team-mate Scott McDonald. Loovens was reported to the panel over a challenge on the Rangers midfielder Maurice Edu during the Old Firm derby at Ibrox on 9 May.

McDonald was referred by Dougal after the referee examined television footage of his tackle on the Dundee United defender Lee Wilkie three days later.

The disciplinary committee will not meet until the summer and any potential suspension would take effect next season. Consequently, both Celtic players will be free to face Hearts on Sunday, while Lafferty is available for Rangers’ trip to Tannadice.