Kilmarnock 1 Celtic 1

Last updated : 15 December 2002 By Footymad Previewer

Celtic opened with their usual gusto and threatened to bulldoze their hosts.

The home goal was almost breached in the fifth minute when Greg Shields was forced into heading against his own post.

Confusion rained in the Killie defence five minutes later when they stopped, expecting an offside flag which never came.

This gave both Chris Sutton and Bobo Balde a clear view of goal, but incredibly neither could make a solid contact and Gordon Marshall recovered to scramble the ball away via the post.

The champions were to rue their misses in the 19th minute when Kilmarnock took the lead.

Shaun Dillon whipped in a free-kick from wide on the right which Andy McLaren rose to meet and glanced a header in at the far post.

Celtic continued to push Killie back and came close to equalising when Henrik Larsson 's free-kick was brilliantly cleared by the retreating James Fowler.

Kilmarnock almost went two ahead before half time after a great move which ended with McLaren's powerful shot being deflected over by Jackie McNamara.

Killie had an amazing escape in the 63rd minute when John HartsonÂ’s shot hit the inside of the post and rolled along the goalline and Sutton could not force the ball home.

The goal was only delayed two minutes when Joos Valgaeren popped up to nod home Hartson's knock back from point-blank range.

For all Celtic's second-half pressure it was Peter Canero who came closest to winning the match for Killie when he swept Steve Fulton's cross narrowly past.