Driving home from Celtic’s draw with Motherwell the post-match reaction to Spurs 1-0 defeat from West Brom sounded very familiar.
While at pains to avoid mentioning a Europa League hangover Mauricio Pochettino thoughts were obvious.
The Spurs boss had made ten changes to the side that had drawn with Partizan Belgrade in Thursday so tiredness couldn’t be blamed for his side’s 1-0 defeat by West Brom.
“The beginning of the game was wrong,” Pochettino said sounding similar to Ronny Deila. “We were very slow, we moved the ball very slow, there was a slow tempo. In football, you need to play quick.
“The way that we played, I think was wrong because we played very, very slow from the beginning.”
Four hundred miles north Deila was equally critical of Celtic’s first 45 minutes against Motherwell.
“Of course I’m not happy with the result,” the Norwegian said. “We deserved to win but we made it so difficult for ourselves with a poor first half.
‘We had bad tempo, no passes forward and didn’t break them down once in the first half. That’s not good enough.”
While Celtic and Spurs struggled Everton were losing 3-2 at home to Crystal Palace with the London side, like West Brom, enjoying their first league win of the season.
With five more Europa League fixtures to negotiate the onus is on Deila, Pochettino and Roberto Martinez to ensure there are no more miseries like today for their season ticket holders to endure.
Celtic’s next Europa League match is at home to Dinamo Zagreb on October 2, three days later Hamilton Accies visit Celtic Park.