The criticism from within was scathing. Frightened and ashamed. Two words not normally associated with the bland after match assessments.
Celtic supporters were much more scathing, no area of the club escaped criticism as the champions of Sweden comfortably took Celtic apart to reach the group stage of the Champions League.
Despite the vast gulf in finances between the two clubs Malmo are a club punching above their weight, a club on the up. Celtic aren’t.
Friday’s Europa League draw will be a sobering experience, not even the slickest advertising campaign will be able to stoke up interest in Thursday night action from a team that have underperformed for three seasons running.
“It is quite simply not even close to the level we can be at,” Deila claimed straight after the final whistle. “We looked very uncomfortable on the ball, we didn’t want the ball.
“We looked very frightened and scared and that is very disappointing. We did it as a team, not as individuals.
“It was a team performance not at the level we can expect at this level. I am a part of that, I am leader of this team. That is my responsibility and I am very disappointed.
“We have to learn from this, evaluate this and get stronger but it is a difficult lesson. Malmo deserved to go through.
“There is a lot of talk in Scotland about Celtic and the Champions League and that makes the games even bigger and it seemed like we didn’t cope with that pressure.”
Equally scathing was the assessment of Scott Brown: “I’m ashamed of the performance from all over the park. From the way defended to the way we attacked it wasn’t like us at all.
“We’ve got to put our hands up. We have high expectations at this club and we need to try to deal with it. It’s a lot of pressure on us but we should have been a lot better than that today.
“The performance wasn’t there. We didn’t look we were going to score a goal and looked like we’d concede a few.”
The aftermath starts this morning with supporters looking very closely to see if lessons are being learned from the failures in Europe over the last three seasons.
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Well done to Malmo last night, we lost this match at Parkhead to be honest and i think our players knew it as well. Should have wiped the floor with them in first half at Parkhead but eased up after 2nd goal when they were their for the taking.
We were poor last night and got what we deserved,but if bitton’s goal stands the whole night and probably the result is different.Would that then make all the criticism null and void?
As the late great Mr Stein said, the Celtic shirt doesn’t shrink to fit inferior players. The fans have been massively letdown again, 3 years and its the same excuses trotted out about learning things,when? Maybe a new manager?players moving in and deadwood out? Who knows except we know once again we’ve underachieved on the biggest stage, most disappointing especially for the paying customers.
Utter shambles!
I’d like to support Ronnie who has stated he is the leader, while noting Brown goes for the collective WE. He is the Captain, highest paid player and was totally ineffective in BOTH games after 10 mins of the 1st leg.
Players take their lead from the more experienced, Brown let us down – not for the first time.
Probably did us a favour, we would have been the whipping boys in any CL group
Fair assessment, we were poor and it looks as though everyone knows this, from the manager to the team. In saying that, my passport’s up to date and I’m now looking forward to Thursday. Can’t change what’s happened, but we can change what’s ahead of us!!
Not sure about the rest of the Celtic support, but here in Dresden, I’m looking for the to EL rather than the Petrofac Cup!! Any lurking Huns, GIRFUY and you can look forward to the QoS game in the lower leagues!
H!H!
“Zonal marking”what happened to just marking your man!John Collins called it right,but know the clown from Aberdeen can only moan about Celtic
Reality check last night and a sore one to take but we have to regroup and move on.
Goals change games and as soon as they scored you could see the panic on our players but what concerned me most was we have nothing up front, it was way too easy for them. Griffiths is a good SPFL player but the rest of our strikers are no where near good enough, we have 5 days to show some ambition and sign a quality striker for 4-5M. How many games have we dominated but not kill teams off ? One quality player up front would make all the difference.
Not even close to being good enough. Goal not given excuse is just papering over the cracks. Who is coaching our defenders, if there is such a person please leave now. Maager talks about learning from the experience, Clearly nothing was learned from last year where we were a disaster as well, why is is going to be any different this time. The whole club needs to take a right good look at where we are heading because it clearly isn’t working at present.
Frightened and scared is EXACTLY what these players looked like last night. There were times when it actually looked like we had forgotten how to play football, we couldn’t make the most basic of passes and when we won a tackle the players gifted the ball away almost immediately because panic swept through the whole team. They lost their shape and composure and ultimately the plot.
The team looked terrified and they simply buckled under the self-imposed pressure they put themselves under. These players were defeated by their own fear not because the opposition was superior and that is the hardest thing to stomach about this defeat.
Everyone has their own views on what they think the underlying problems are, some blame the manager, some the board and some the players but for me personally it’s the club’s overall strategy. We have become a club in a constant state of flux, we sell off our best players at the first opportunity because their stock is high even though we have not identified adequate replacements, we then squander that money we make by spending it on the bulk buying of mediocrity hoping one of them might come good when sometimes the better and more prudent option is to invest that money in the signing of ONE player of a higher calibre. And the strategy of signing young up and coming players is a good and understandable one BUT you cannot fill the whole team with them. Without the presence of experienced pros alongside them these young players have no one to learn from, no one to guide them through games, and they won’t progress the way they should and that ultimately leads to what we witnessed last night.
It’s my view that if the club refuses to look again at it’s current strategy, if it doesn’t allow for some flexibility at least then last night’s performance will become the norm and even the Malmos and Qarabags of this world will leave us behind.
Scott Brown back to Hibs.
We have to raise our parameters in judging possible signings, being good enough for domestic football isn’t nearly good enough. All players should be viewed on how they can perform in difficult European ties, can they cope with the expectations, the pressure of HAVING to get a result.
Sure we can’t come close to competing with the big hitters in Spain, Germany, Italy etc..but we can easily compete with those in Sweden, Austria, Holland, Belgium, Eastern Europe and take their best talent IF we source it early enough. We need to get a much better reputation for promoting young talent and giving them the stage to progress.
No problems in selling players on for big profits, but the network has to be in place to keep finding better players to replace those sold. We also need to stop throwing big money at players who have failed us on too many occasions. Bite the bullet and move them on, LEARN from our mistakes not just talk about it. Strachan’s teams were lacking in quality but not in organisation….our set plays attacking & defensively are too ad hoc or easily nullified.
We changed our shape in Malmo…WHY ? Good teams have confidence in their setup, don’t change styles Home or away, let them worry about us, make them change. We should have learned plenty from the home leg v Malmo, clearly we didn’t.
Defensive midfielders in our domestic game are NOT required. If our defence can’t cope with 1 or maybe 2 attackers v 3/4 defenders they shouldn’t be at Celtic. Set up our stall to attack the opponents and let them try to stop us…bring the excitement back & kick fear into touch.