A nervous Celtic prolong the agony

Celtic - 0, Hibernian - 0

Purgatory in paradise. Every now and then a bulletin would arrive from Tynecastle. Rangers one up. Rangers two up. Rangers three up. So this is limbo. On the green napkin of Parkhead the mortals in the hoops are nervy as rabbits.

Henrik Larsson had perhaps the best chance early on Saturday afternoon. The ball hopped between himself and the goalkeeper and the options presented to him were threefold. Take it down and go around the goalkeeper, dive with full enthusiasm and accept the reward for bravery or, the option Larsson took, poke it quickly and hope for the best. Wide as it happens.

The third last afternoon of the season and Celtic Park is filled to its brand new rafters. Over 50,000 paying customers need to be here on the day Celtic win the league. In the mind's eye it has happened already. Rangers losing away to Hearts. Celtic trouncing bottom-of-the-heap Hibernian and finishing the afternoon six points and a hatful of goals clear with just two games left. Happy days and low lie the fields. Outside you can only get 12 to 1 and falling on Celtic winning.

They should know better. Hoops life isn't like that. Just look. Simon Donnelly with his jockey's physique is too small for a wide position and throughout the game he seems to serve as a cypher for Celtic's frustrated ambitions. He is lightweight and nippy and tidy and wasteful. His jumpiness spreads quickly to the crowd.

Parkhead has seldom been so quiet. The stadium is nearing completion now, impressive in a cold functional way with lots of steel and concrete showing beneath its skirts. What will make it special is what transpires on the inside. Someday.

For now Celtic are grinding their way to a scoreless draw against a team which have virtually wrapped up relegation.

Hibernian are muscular and unimaginative and Celtic lack sufficient wit to dismantle them. Burley is unfit, Lambert is unnoticed and Brattbakk has been decommissioned for the season.

Back in August, of course, most Celtic fans would have sacrificed blood relatives for the chance to be a point clear of Rangers with just Dunfermline and St Johnstone left to play.

Now it all seems a little too jangly. The thought of yielding a 10th title in a row to Rangers weighs heavily on the mind.

Outside Parkhead the drizzle-soaked vendors are selling green jerseys with the number 9 writ large on the back. Underneath is the legend "We Did It First." That consolation is so flimsy that there are no takers. Who wants to wear one of those jerseys when Rangers fans might be wandering around with big number 10s on their backs next August.

The tension is so tangible you could package it. As Donnelly wastes a couple of chances which would have him jailed for criminal negligence in less sympathetic jurisdictions the thoughts turn to the future. Celtic need this league and the European cash which will come with it if they are to stay in touch.

To lose and hand Rangers a 10th title in a row would be a trauma of unimaginable proportions made worse by the certain knowledge that things will only get worse.

Celtic have never had a better opportunity handed to them. Rangers have drawn five and lost five of their away league fixtures this year losing the new year game at Parkhead in the process but springing back off the ropes to deliver two typical sucker punches to Celtic earlier this month. That sort of torment Celtic fans have become accustomed to, their side outplayed Rangers two weekends in a row but lost on each occasion.

This has been a poor quality race run by a sub-standard field. Celtic fundamentalists are encouraged by the steps their team has taken in relation to where they were, say, five years ago, but there has been little about the season to suggest that if Celtic stagger across the finish line in first place they will go on to greater accomplishments or even similar accomplishments.

The purchases have been off the middle shelf of the soccer superstore. The giddy excitement generated by the departed Di Canio, Cadete and Van Hooijdonk hasn't been replicated. There has been uncertainty off the field as well with the strong suggestion that coach Wim Jansen will be departing the scene soon. The after-wash of the exit of Tommy Burns and David Hay has been messy too.

It is a grim situation which doesn't nourish the sort of hubris associated with this most bitter of local rivalries. Celtic are one point ahead but with no moral authority. This season they have lost to Hibernian, Dunfermline, Motherwell and St Johnstone as well as giving up eight out of 12 points to Rangers.

And next year? Another of the leading brand names in European soccer moves into Ibrox Park. Dick Advocaat coached Ronaldo at PSV and nobody at Parkhead expects him to settle for the sort of jaded mediocrity which has characterised this Rangers season.

Advocaat has clout, a cheque book and the benefit of being a new broom. Celtic have uncertainty.

Among partisans there are no doubts about the inadequacies of their league. Brian Laudrup, a resident sensation in Glasgow and a shining symbol of dark blue ambition, promised his future to Chelsea recently. Ken Bates, the major-domo of the club often considered to be Rangers' spiritual cousins, expressed his indifference, stating that Laudrup had been playing the equivalent of reserve-team football for the past four years.

For Glaswegians of either hue the stinging truth of the dismissal was undeniable. Rangers have been a cut above everybody for the best part of a decade. Their European record spells out the consequences of playing good players in a bad league week in, week out.

Out on the field Donnelly is withdrawn for the meatier McNamara and things improve slightly, but the tension is almost crippling and when good claims for a penalty are turned down by the rather unauthoritative referee Celtic begin snatching desperately.

Afterwards in the dinky press room within the stands Wim Jansen is philosophical but upbeat about it all, running his hand through his tangle of curls and sighing.

"Disappointed about the result of course, you want to win the game and make it easier, but we can't change the situation we know we have to win the two coming games if we want to win the league.

"For the first 10 minutes we didn't play as sharp as we are used to playing. We put the pressure on ourselves."

There's the rub. Celtic play on Sunday next week. Rangers on Saturday. When Celtic travel to Dunfermline they could be two points behind. That type of pressure can be suffocating.

The great green and white constituency crosses its fingers and hopes for some respite from football's longest nightmare.

Celtic: Gould, Boyd, Annoni, Donnelly (Blinker 79), Rieper, Stubbs, Larsson, Burley (Wieghorst 82), Jackson (McNamara 58), Lambert, O'Donnell. Booked: Boyd, Annoni.

Hibernian: Gunn, Miller, Elliot, Brebner, Hughes, Dods, Skinner, Rougier (Harper 62), Crawford (Tosh 81), Lavety, McGinlay. Subs Not Used: Renwick. Booked: Miller, McGinlay.

Referee: G Simpson (Westhill).