Celtic travelled to Tynecastle to face what many saw as a very tricky cup-tie, especially after the much-publicised recent league game (Celtic having won 1 –0), which had elbow allegations, coin throwing, spitting and bookings galore.

BigBadJohn didn’t make the game through an injury and as MON said before the match if he had to miss a match maybe this was a good one to miss. This meant the renewal of the almost telepathic Sutton-Larsson partnership up front. The Thompson gun returned to the left side of midfield with the highly impressive Pearson going 1 inside to partner Neil Lennon in a 4-man midfield with Petrov taking up his berth on the right wing. Once again as in recent months Celtic lined up with Jackie McNamara at left back and Didier Agathe occupying the right back slot. John Kennedy continued to deputise for Bobo Balde who was off at the African Nations Cup playing for Guinea in a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Mali in the second quarterfinal. (I was torn, as I am sure a lot of fans were, between wanting to see him do well, and getting him back as soon as possible to the Celtic shirt.

The Celtic faithful created a cracking atmosphere at the start of the match and the Sky commentary team indicated that Hearts would in no doubt take heart from the midweek victory of archrivals Hibs over the Govan scumbags and have a similar taste for a Glasgow scalp in the Scottish cup.

They forgot though that Celtic are miles in front of Rangers on and off the park these days, and within 3 minutes of kick off, Bulgaria’s player of the year Stan Petrov, made a great run down the right-hand side and latched on to a sublimely weighted pass from Henrik Larsson, to slot a coolly place finished past Gordon to the far post.

This settled the hoops down instantly and they started to play some “wonderful” football in the first half. Toying with Hearts. Sutton and Larsson were linking excellently and it wasn’t long before they had once again combined to send Petrov through on Gordon. A lovely move from left to right saw Sutton lay off to Henrik who sent on a first time ball to Petrov who was charging in again on the right and let fly a glorious half volley into the roof of the net.

Celtic played some of the finest football of the season in the first half, Hearts only response was to try an kick lumps out of Neil Lennon in the middle of the park.
Hartley, being particularly lucky to remain on the pitch after he led with an elbow and flattened the Lurgan man just before the interval. That coming only minutes after Stamp had kicked out at Lennon, and resulted in both players going into the book.

The Celtic fans behind the Hearts goal were in full voice now taunting the JamFarts with “Are you Rangers in disguise” 

Levein tried to change things at half time bringing on the Canadian international Kevin McKenna and Nielson. It made little difference to the flow of the game. DeVries had Hearts only real chance when he shot wide after turning Kennedy in the box.
Neil Lennon continued to get an awful amount of abuse from the Hearts players and it was no surprise to see the Dubliner Maybury and Hartley pick up second bookings for fouls on Lennon and have to take an early bath. Just before the end Petrov nearly secured his hattrick with a well struck shot low to the keepers right, the keeper got a good hand on it, but as it popped into the air who was there to finish it and Hearts off but that man Larsson, who wheeled away in trademark fashion fully delighted after bagging his 223rd goal for the hoops.

Stan Petrov picked up the MOTM award and deservedly so. His performances in recent weeks have been back to the high standards he has set for himself.

In the post match interview MON hailed the teams performance and when asked whether he felt Hearts used provocation tactics on his team, he said: 

"It seemed so. The referee felt inclined to show the players two yellow cards and I thought they were worthy of the bookings.

"I mentioned pre-match the importance of [our] players keeping their discipline so I was very pleased with that. I don't know what Neil Lennon was booked for, but generally speaking our discipline was very good.

"Neil gets stick all over the place and I can understand it at Ibrox, but I'm not sure I understand it at other grounds. But he's having a great time of it at the minute and he has played consistently well since coming up here."

All in all this was another wonderful performance from a very powerful Celtic side. Their reward for this performance is a home tie with the winners of Kilmarnock and Rangers on the weekend of the 6/7 March.

Teams 

Hearts Gordon, Maybury, Pressley, Webster, Stamp, de Vries, MacFarlane (Neilson 50), Wyness, Hartley, Kisnorbo (Kirk 71), Sloan (McKenna 49). 
Subs Not Used: Moilanen, Weir. 

Sent Off: Hartley (85), Maybury (90). 
Booked: Stamp, Hartley, Maybury. 

Celtic Douglas, McNamara, Varga, Sutton, Thompson, Pearson, Agathe, Lennon, Petrov, Kennedy, Larsson. 
Subs Not Used: Marshall, Valgaeren, Lambert, Maloney, Beattie. 

Booked: Lennon, Sutton. 

Goals: Petrov 3, 33, Larsson 90. 

Att: 15,372 
Ref: W Young (Scotland).