Celtic FC Women’s impressive 2-0 win against Hearts yesterday afternoon sets the Hoops up nicely for an SWPL1 Glasgow Derby at theRangers this weekend.
Goals from Caitlin Hayes and Mengyu Shen saw the Hoops overcome a stubborn Hearts resistance, with Charlotte Parker-Smith in the Hearts goal the main reason why the Celts didn’t come away with more goals than the one-way traffic performance from the Hoops deserved.
With that win Celtic have now cut the gap between themselves and Glasgow City in second place to just two points, and the gap to theRangers at the top to four, and now with a Derby on the horizon an on-form Hoops side can now look to eating into our rivals advantage still further come Sunday afternoon.
One player who could count herself more than a little unlucky not to score yesterday was Clarissa Larisey who after scoring in determined fashion against theRangers in Celtic’s 2-1 Scottish Cup win at the Penny Cars Stadium, unluckily drew a blank against the Edinburgh club yesterday despite another impactful performance.
Speaking to Celtic TV, Larisey who has been deputising as a striker for injured top scorer Charlie Wellings, reflected on being denied by an inspired Hearts ‘keeper and looked forward to the return of key players unavailable to Fran Alonso yesterday due to late international call-ups and injuries.
“It was really good and I’m going to give credit to the Hearts keeper. She did really well and saved a lot of at least my shots, but I thought our team did really well though and we fought till the end.
“I’m excited to get the girls back. I’m happy for them but I’m excited for them to come back and we’ve got a big game against (the)Rangers so we’ll need them.”
And Head-Coach Fran Alonso’s gamble to fulfil yesterday’s fixture, despite being entitled to request a postponement due to having those players missing due to international commitments, was fully vindicated, as three points were gained, a fixture pile-up can now be avoided, and the win has now put the pressure on those teams above, who may have games in hand but not yet the points on the board.
“We always aim for the best and want to score as many goals as possible and we had so many clear chances, so we could get frustrated at times, but we’re realistic,” he said.
“We were missing four international players and two very important players to injury but we managed to get the three points and a clean sheet against a very good side.”
Celtic now have a full week to prepare for the most important league fixture of the SWPL1 campaign so far, and players returning from international call-ups and injury can only help, as Celtic face an opponent who Fran Alonso has only ever tasted defeat to once in seven attempts. The Celtic boss will be confident of continuing that record away to theRangers on Sunday, in a game where three points for Celtic will blow the title race wide open once more.
Niall J
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