Hartson breathes fire into Celtic

Martin O'Neill billed it as the game Celtic had to win. Yet on a day in which his players wore their hearts on their sleeves, how fitting that John Hartson should help them muscle their way back into the Scottish Premier League title race.

The Welsh striker has shouldered the burden of responsibility since Henrik Larsson shattered his jaw a month ago, but his 23rd goal of the season could turn out to be the most precious. Under the watchful eye of his national coach, Mark Hughes, Hartson breathed life back into Celtic's ambitions of a third successive championship under O'Neill with a volley that Hughes himself would have been proud of.

With two glaring misses to his name, Hartson might have been mistaken for a pussycat. But, just before the hour, enter the dragon. His right foot swept through the air with the grace of Jackie Chan, rifling the ball beyond the grasp of goalkeeper Stefan Klos.

Next up, Liverpool. But Michael Owen, whose grandmother lives across the road from Celtic Park, could have walked round in complete anonymity yesterday. This was a day when Glasgow's two divided halves had eyes only for each other.

At no time is defeat palatable in an Old Firm encounter. Certainly not when your rivals hold a six-point lead, and most definitely not when the Battle of Britain is around the corner on Thursday.

Now the gap at the top of the table is trimmed to three points, with Celtic having a game in hand, the tantalising prospect of the Uefa Cup quarter-final with Gérard Houllier's side can be properly sized up. Of course, before events can shift to Anfield for the return leg, Celtic face Rangers again next Sunday, at Hampden Park in the Scottish League Cup final. Momentum is everything in football, and right now O'Neill's players appear to be loaded with the stuff.

"We had to win today," declared the Celtic manager afterwards. "We have a monumental couple of weeks coming up, but we could not think about anything else other than this. We are back in the race again. John admitted later that he had visions of having to come into the dressing room and apologise for the earlier header he had missed. But his goal was sensational, a wonderful finish from a wonderful player."

The irony of Hartson changing the tide of the title race will be deeply felt on the other side of Glasgow. The Welshman, of course, would have been a Rangers player had he not failed a medical because of a knee problem in August 2000.

A year later, O'Neill took the gamble and spent £6 million on bringing Hartson to Celtic, ostensibly as back-up to Larsson and Chris Sutton. "When John arrived, Henrik and Chris were doing brilliantly, but he took up the challenge and his ratio of goals to time spent on the field is amazing – he's a natural scorer," O'Neill said.

Hartson has contributed four goals in the three games he has played since Larsson's injury. Like the prolific Swede, he seems able to cast aside any doubts when he fails to find the net and simply moves on to the next chance. He ought to have put Celtic in front after just 14 minutes when Stilian Petrov's low corner came racing across the face of goal, but a swipe with his right boot failed to find the target.

Rangers' early promise burned out, though Mikel Arteta sent a shiver of panic down Celtic's spine with a fierce 27th-minute shot that flew wide.

Celtic claimed loudly for a penalty when Craig Moore made contact with Alan Thompson in first-half stoppage time, but referee Mike McCurry concluded the former Aston Villa player was seeking to engineer the collision. However, the sense of injustice fuelled Celtic's intense second-half scrutiny of their rivals. Corner after corner provided a succession of chances, most notably when Hartson glanced wide from just six yards after Thompson picked him out.

Celtic broke the deadlock in the 57th minute. Joos Valgaeren broke up a threatening Rangers attack by robbing Arteta, allowing Paul Lambert to shuttle the ball wide to Thompson, who unerringly sought out Sutton on the edge of the box with a diagonal ball. He rose above Jerome Bonnissel and Lorenzo Amoruso to knock the ball down into the path of the unguarded Hartson, whose venomous volley found the net from 16 yards.

Celtic were almost made to pay for failing to kill off the game when Amoruso thundered a fierce shot towards Robert Douglas in the last minute, from Barry Ferguson's short free-kick, but the goalkeeper atoned for his two costly mistakes in the last derby to beat it aside.

Alex McLeish praised Celtic later, even though he was suffering his first defeat to O'Neill in seven encounters, but insisted: "We are still in pole position." The pragmatic O'Neill is unlikely to dwell too long either. "We will celebrate for a day, then we'll think about Liverpool," he said.

Celtic 1 Rangers 0
Hartson 58

Half-time: 0-0 Attendance: 58,787