| Date | Saturday, 27 December 2014 |
|---|---|
| Competition | Scottish Premiership |
| Fixture/Score | Celtic 0:0 Ross County |
| Venue | Celtic Park |
| Attendance | 45,798 |
| Referee | Crawford Allan |
| Comments | Match Report Report by Jonathan Sutherland for the BBC. Celtic 0 Ross County 0 Ross County put the shackles on Celtic as they held the champions in Glasgow. Ronny Deila signalled his attacking intent with Leigh Griffiths, John Guidetti and Anthony Stokes starting, but the latter was an early injury victim for the home side. The goal avalanche never arrived with County defending resolutely, though Callum McGregor did hit the bar. And it was the visitors who could have won it late on when Filip Kiss struck the post. The only solace for Celtic is that Hamilton and Dundee United failed to take advantage with both slipping to defeat. Jim McIntyre's men fall to the bottom of the table despite gaining a point. Just before the match started, Ross County were forced into a reshuffle after Graham Carey suffered a back spasm and he was replaced by Michael Gardyne. As expected, Celtic had the majority of the early possession but they struggled to create chances. Two free-kicks from Guidetti were the early highlights, the first saved by Antonio Reguero, and the second ruffling the side-netting. From a Stefan Johansen free-kick Nir Bitton provided a goal-bound header but Reguero batted the ball to safety. Ross County were virtually non-existent as an attacking force. A Martin Woods snap-shot wide of the target after some slack Celtic defending was the best they could muster. A cut-back from Adam Matthews then gave Celtic substitute McGregor a great chance but he could not get his shot away. Griffiths had a crack at goal that looked dangerous but Guidetti attempted to back-heel it into the corner and the ball ended up flashing wide of the post. Celtic began the second half a little bit flat and County's Lewis Toshney tried an early header, but it was a comfortable save for Craig Gordon. McGregor then almost broke the deadlock with a chipped effort from the edge of the box, but it came back off the bar with Guidetti failing to finish the rebound. Celtic were generally labouring to break the visitors down and, with that in mind, Stefan Scepovic and Kris Commons were brought on from the bench to try to liven up the hosts. However, it was County who almost stole all three points when a shot from Kiss beat Gordon, but agonisingly for the Slovak it cracked back off the post. Griffiths then fired in a late shot which Reguero did well to save to keep it goalless. However, "mindful" that Celtic had won 5-0 in Dingwall earlier in the season, Staggies boss Jim McIntyre said: "I am delighted. The players carried out the game plan very well. "The last time against Celtic we tried to have a go and took a hammering so that was in the mind-set today. "We had to be hard to beat and break down and they carried that our very well. "I think it's important when you come to Parkhead that you grow into the game. At Dingwall we lost two goals in 12 minutes and Celtic have great quality so we were mindful of that fact. "And the only result we could affect today was our own and we take the positives out of taking a point at Parkhead. "I don't think many teams will come here and do that. St Mirren's results are irrelevant to us, we can only concentrate on ourselves. "Is it (dropping a place) disappointing? Of course it is, but I'm really pleased with what we've done today. "The thing that's been letting us down is not winning games, but we haven't been taking a hammering off teams. "It's been the odd goal here and there and we have to turn that to the odd goal in our favour." |
| Ross County | |
| Manager | Jim McIntyre |
| Starting 11 | 1: Antonio Reguero Chapinal 1, 5: Scott Boyd, 6: Steven Saunders 1, 8: Richard Brittain, 10: Filip Kiss 1, 12: Jamie Reckord, 15: Yoann Arquin, 26: Martin Woods, 31: Terry Dunfield 1, 40: Michael Gardyne, 43: Paul Quinn |
| Bench | 21: Mark Brown, 7: Joseph Cardle, 9: Jake Jervis, 14: Darren Maatsen, 17: Steven Ross, 25: Lewis Toshney |
| Celtic | |
| Manager | Ronny Deila |
| Starting 11 | Craig Gordon, Virgil Van Dijk, Efe Ambrose, Emilio Izaguirre 1, Adam Matthews, Leigh Griffiths, Anthony Stokes, Stefan Johansen, Nir Bitton, Scott Brown, John Guidetti |
| Bench | Lukasz Zaluska, Callum Mcgregor, Kris Commons, Stefan Scepovic, Liam Henderson, Eoghan O'Connell, Kieran Tierney |