Celtic restore some pride in beating Villarreal

Celtic restored some pride to Scottish football with a 2-0 win over ten-men Villarreal in their Champions League Group E clash at Parkhead.

The win was the first time in 14 matches that a Scottish side had won in either the UEFA Cup or Champions League this season, one of the nation's poorest ever runs in European competition.

Scotland's UEFA co-efficient – or ranking – which determines the number of clubs can compete in Europe has taken a hammering this season as Rangers, Motherwell, Hibernian and Queen of the South all exited Europe at the first hurdle.

But Celtic's victory – their first in eight Champions League matches – should boost future Scottish champions chances of keeping an automatic place in the group stages of the competition.

After last month's defeat to Aalborg, Celtic had nothing to play for in their clash with Villarreal but goals from Shaun Maloney and Aiden McGeady clinched the game for the home side as Guille Franco was sent off.

Villarreal carved out the first real chance of the match after 11 minutes when Franco narrowly missed connecting with a Mati Fernandez cross at the far post.

Celtic took the lead in the 14th minute through a header from Maloney. Goalkeeper Sebastian Viera allowed a Mark Wilson cross from the left to slip through his hands and the smallest man on the park leaped up to head it into the net.

Georgios Samaras should have extended Celtic's lead when he failed to latch on to a defence-splitting pass from Maloney and McGeady came close with a long range effort which went wide of the post.

Villarreal were reduced to ten men when Franco saw red in the 35th minute for an off-the-ball incident involving Gary Caldwell. The striker lashed out with his elbow which was spotted by the linesman and referee Claudio Circhetta gave Franco his marching orders.

McGeady doubled Celtic's lead in first-half injury time. The Irish international picked up the ball at the half-way line and drove at the Villarreal defence before unleashing an angled low drive past Viera from the edge of the box.

Villarreal substitute Nihat Kahveci came close to pulling one back for the Spanish side in the 56th minute when his first-time volley from a Ariel Ibagaza corner went just wide of Artur Boruc's near post.

The Polish keeper, whose blunder against Hibernian at the weekend helped bring Celtic's 12-game unbeaten league run to an end, then made a magnificent save from Nihat.

The striker beat the offside trap to go one-on-one with Boruc but the keeper stood tall to block his shot in the 70th minute.

Despite dominating possession Celtic couldn't make their extra man advantage count and the nearest they came to adding to their total was a long range effort from Shunsuke Nakamura which stung the hands of Viera.