Celtic suffered another heartbreaking defeat to Heart of Midlothian in the Scottish Premiership, but Chris Sutton did not hold back when assessing their performance at Tynecastle.
Celtic fall back to eight points in Scottish Premiership title race
Celtic, who have continued to lack form domestically, withstood a second-half collapse in Sunday’s crucial clash between the top two to take an eight-point lead over Heart of Midlothian in the title race.
Callum McGregor’s equalizer was little consolation for the visiting support side, who were left disappointed with Alexandros Kyzyridis and Lawrence Shankland giving the home side a deserved three points after Dane Murray’s own goal put them behind.
Manager Brendan Rodgers was under pressure before kick-off in the capital and did little to placate the public as his side succumbed to a second-half collapse as the Bhoys side continued their uncharacteristic start to the season.
Cameron Carter-Vickers led Celtic’s long list of injuries against Tynecastle, but it didn’t help their case. However, his replacement Murray hasn’t had a memorable day and could well be a candidate to be dropped from the squad ahead of Wednesday’s game against Falkirk at Parkhead.
In the end, Hearts tried to take the lead in the 45th minute of the second half, but they left the reigning champions without an answer and their first straight league defeat in almost two years was confirmed.
Celtic’s level of consistency is usually very high. Nevertheless, this has been a season of contrasts, and fan anger at the hierarchy after a disastrous summer transfer window will continue to make headlines.
Celtic’s next five games under Brendan Rodgers | |
Falkirk (H) | first minister of scotland |
Rangers (N) | premier sports cup |
Central Jutland (A) | europe league |
Kilmarnock (H) | first minister of scotland |
St Mirren (A) | first minister of scotland |
Overall, the Boyds have fallen well short of expectations so far, and Sutton pointed to some key tasks that he believes they are simply not fulfilling at the moment.
Chris Sutton reacts to Celtic’s defeat to Hearts
After the final whistle, Sutton clarified on social media platform
The former Hoops striker believes the team needs to improve on these three aspects if they want to turn their season around to beat Hearts and win the league title.
Referring to the Irishman’s comments from last week when Celtic fell to Dundee, Hearts made the most of their predicament, but everything was not going well for the Scottish champions and an eight-point lead at this stage would have been unthinkable months ago.
Arguably Derek McInnes and his team continued to generate momentum with an unbeaten start to the league season, something the Boyes were unable to generate at Tynecastle.
Celtic need to adapt quickly against Falkirk and start producing results regularly. Failure to do so will result in new levels of oversight of managers and boardrooms.
