Dundee Utd 2
Celtic 0
League (Premier Division)

Match Report

Tannadice, which has so often been the graveyard for Celtic's aspirations lived up to its reputation yet again. This latest defeat means Celtic have only won twice on Tayside in their last 17 visits. More importantly from a United standpoint, it closed the gap on Celtic, who are in fourth spot, to a single point and re-awakened our own hopes of a place in Europe again next season.

Early proceedings shed no light on how comfortable a victory we were to eventually earn. If anything Celtic had the better of the opening half hour, most notably when Elliot flicked on a Mathie corner and Miller smacked the ball against the bar. However once we went ahead there was only going to be one winner. That first goal came after 36 minutes when Kevin Gallacher's powerful shot was only palmed away by Bonner and Paddy Connolly turned the ball home although Bonner did fumble the ball over the line. Within a matter of minutes we should have scored twice more. Celtic's defence was in total disarray as Kevin Gallacher sped on to a through ball, but he shot weakly into Bonner's arms. Then John Clark was presented with a free header from a Dave Narey free-kick, but he missed the target. However, right on the stroke of half-time we did get a second and again the move was initiated by a free-kick from Dave Narey. Mixu Paatelainen headed the ball on and Elliot, obligingly missed his clearance to allow Paddy Connolly to steal in, side-step Bonner and tuck the ball into the empty net.

Immediately after the interval we might have gone further ahead, but Bonner pushed over Darren Jackson's downward header from a sweeping cross from Miodrag Krivokapic. Celtic, true to their tradition, battled hard, but on the few occasions they managed to find a gap in our defence, they found goalkeeper Alan Main unflappable. So with two thirds of our home League programme under-taken we remain unbeaten, which is all the more remarkable after our patchy home form of last season.