Celtic v Hearts: Scottish Premiership title decider – live
? Updates from the 12.30pm BST kick-off at Celtic Park
? Live scores | The table | Get Football Daily | Mail Simon
And so the day has come, the day when decisions will be made and champions determined. Hearts play Celtic at Celtic Park needing to avoid defeat to seal the title. Celtic’s record against Hearts at home? Well there was a run of 23 wins in 24 games between 2009 and 2023 (and they drew the other one). but since then it’s three wins for Celtic and two for Hearts, including their previous meeting this season, back in December. Celtic’s form is remarkable, but then this week they were unconvincing and needed a horror penalty decision to beat Motherwell 3-2, while Hearts outplayed Falkirk and won 3-0. Ahead of this game Martin O’Neill was asked what he made of the furore surrounding that penalty:
Am I surprised? No, I’m not surprised because everybody wants Hearts to win. It’s really as simple as that. Everybody outside Celtic and the Celtic diaspora wants Hearts to win. And if it wasn’t Hearts, it would to be Rangers, it’d be somebody else, that’s the nature of it.
It’s a perfect ending to a season for the league, for Scottish football, for drama and excitement ... It’s pure box office. It’ll be bedlam, it’ll be an unbelievable atmosphere. There might be people out there who think everything’s back on script, ‘Celtic win their home game, they win the league.’ But we’ve ripped the script up so often this season, and we’ve got one more in us I think, and it’s up to us to try and make that happen.
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