Hibs bring Celtic's winning streak to an end at Easter Road

A catastrophic error by Celtic keeper, Artur Boruc, saw John Rankin’s speculative 45-yard effort give Hibs the lead at Easter road after 54 minutes. Colin Nish doubled the Hibees’ lead 15 minutes later to ensure the victory and condemn Celtic to their first league defeat in thirteen games.

Celtic, who arrived in Edinburgh without injured Barry Robson, left Shunsuke Nakamura and Georgio Samaras on the bench, opting to give Glen Loovens and Cillian Sheridan places in the starting line-up, while Hibs welcomed Alan O’Brien and Steven Thicot back from injury and ex-Celt Derek Riordan made way for Nish.

In a dull first half, Celtic enjoyed a huge amount of possession and created several clear-cut chances to take the lead. However, the partnership of Scott McDonald and Sheridan failed to capitalise on a number of scoring opportunities.

The only clear cut chance for the home side fell to Steven Fletcher, who failed to find the target after rounding Boruc. Man-of-the-match, John Rankin, provided the opportunity after skipping past two static Celtic players and sending a long-range defence-splitting pass to the feet of Fletcher.

The game and the crowd burst into action on 54 minutes when the ever-impressive Rankin fired the home side into the lead from 45 yards. Boruc was solely to blame when he appeared to dive out of the way, despite having plenty of time to deal with the opportunistic shot.

Celtic immediately sensed the urgency for a goal and brought on Samaras for the completely anonymous Sheridan. Unfortunately for Celtic, Samaras continued where Sheridan left off and proved to be completely ineffectual, posing no goal threat whatsoever.

Andreas Hinkel and Shaun Maloney both came close to equalising for the visitors as they continued to put the Hibs backline to the test. However, Hibs’ defensive tactics paid off against the run of play when Nish poked home their second goal from two yards, effectively killing the game off. Slick link-up play from the Easter Road side saw O'Brien round Boruc and cut back to Rankin who volleyed his shot towards Nish, leaving the striker with the simple task of guiding in it into the back of the net.

The visibly dejected visitors failed to find the net in the remaining twenty minutes, resulting in their lead at the top of the SPL being cut to 4 points after Rangers thumped Hamilton 7-1 at Ibrox on Saturday.

Hibs manager Mixu Paatelainen praised his players for sticking strictly to the defensive game-plan and taking advantage of the few opportunities they created.

"I am absolutely delighted. Defensively, the boys were fantastic and very solid. The way they defended and hit them on the break, it could have been one or two more," he said.