{"id":512946,"date":"2025-10-19T22:48:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T22:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/512946\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T22:48:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T22:48:13","slug":"celtic-fail-to-cut-hearts-lead-after-dismal-defeat-at-dundee-amid-fan-protests-scottish-premiership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/512946\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtic fail to cut Hearts lead after dismal defeat at Dundee amid fan protests | Scottish Premiership"},"content":{"rendered":"

Celtic failed to cut the gap on the Scottish Premiership<\/a> leaders, Hearts, after enduring their first defeat away against Dundee since 1988.<\/p>\n

Celtic fans had disrupted the game early on by throwing dozens of balls on to the pitch in their ongoing protest against the club\u2019s board, before Clark Robertson headed the home side ahead from a corner in the 17th minute. The Celtic<\/a> defender Cameron Carter-Vickers then scored an own goal just before the break.<\/p>\n

The visitors dominated the second half but lost 2-0, their first Premiership defeat of the season and first at Dens Park since Tommy Coyne scored the only goal of the game for the Dark Blues 37 years ago.<\/p>\n

Celtic, booed at the end, remain five points behind Hearts, whom they play at Tynecastle next Sunday. Before then they have a Europa League tie against Sturm Graz on Thursday, with improvement required.<\/p>\n

The game came to a quick halt after the first whistle blew when Celtic fans bombarded the pitch with different coloured balls, causing a delay while they were cleared. Visiting fans then chanted against the chief executive, Michael Nicholson, and the chair, Peter Lawwell.<\/p>\n

When the game started it was low-key until the 10th minute when the home striker Joe Westley mis-kicked the ball six yards from goal after Simon Murray had cleverly stepped over a Drey Wright cross.<\/p>\n

At the other end, Kelechi Iheanacho clipped the outside of the post with a snapshot but it was Dundee<\/a> who forged ahead when the unmarked Robertson leapt to bullet in a header from a Cameron Congreve corner.<\/p>\n

Clark Robertson watches his header fly towards the far corner to give Dundee the lead. Photograph: David Young\/Action Plus\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Kieran Tierney and Yang Hyun-jun both missed the target with efforts as Celtic piled on the pressure. However, in another dangerous Dundee breakaway Congreve turned the Celtic centre-back Liam Scales before crossing for Westley to skim the ball in off the helpless Carter-Vickers and double the home side\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n

James Forrest and Johnny Kenny replaced Yang and Anthony Ralston for the start of the second half. Celtic kept up the pressure while Dundee defended resolutely, threatening any time they broke forward.<\/p>\n

In the 58th minute Celtic\u2019s Reo Hatate fired wide from the edge of the box before Ashley Hay, on as a Dundee substitute for Murray, came close with a header from 12 yards.<\/p>\n

The Dundee goalkeeper Jon McCracken twice thwarted Iheanacho and it looked like Celtic were handed a lifeline when Hatate\u2019s shot appeared to be blocked by the arm of Paul Digby inside the Dundee box. The referee, Matthew MacDermid, pointed to the spot but after he checked his pitchside monitor, at the behest of his VAR, he overturned his decision to the cheers of the home fans.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to Football Daily<\/p>\n

Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

The Celtic manager, Brendan Rodgers, who had previously expressed dissatisfaction with the way the summer transfer window transpired after Adam Idah and Nicolas K\u00fchn left the club, said: \u201cListen, it\u2019s not all linear and all smooth right the way through the season.<\/p>\n

Celtic fans threw dozens of tennis balls on to the pitch in protest at the club\u2019s board. Photograph: Stuart Wallace\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the challenge from the summer, now leading into here, where we lost a lot of firepower, a lot of goals out on the team. And there\u2019s no way you\u2019ll go into a race and be given the keys to a Honda Civic and say: \u2018I want you to drive it like a Ferrari.\u2019 It\u2019s not going to happen. So until something changes, I have to find the solutions. Because like I said, goals, speed, everything has come out of the team and we need to find a way to be better.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was clear in the summer, but it\u2019s really the past now. There\u2019s nothing we can do about it. We had the opportunities to do what we needed to do. It didn\u2019t happen, so now it\u2019s finding ways, whether it\u2019s 4-3-3, whether it\u2019s 3-4-3, whether it\u2019s 3-5-2. We\u2019re trying to look at all these different permutations within the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dundee manager, Steven Pressley, said: \u201cI\u2019m exceptionally proud of the group of players. I think to beat Celtic on any given day, you have to carry a degree of luck. We also have to show a real resilience and a real determination in the way you play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celtic failed to cut the gap on the Scottish Premiership leaders, Hearts, after enduring their first defeat away…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-512946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115403273426488962","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}