Joe Ledley believes that his goal in Rennes can help push Celtic through to the knock-out stages of the Europa League.
Celtic face back-to-back home games with Rennes and Atletico Madrid knowing that full points will give them a fighting chance of qualification ahead of the final group match away to Udinese.
Ledley’s 70th minute header cancelled out a first half own goal from Cha Du-Ri that won’t be forgotten easily.
“It’s a big point for us,” the Welshman admitted. “We’ve got a great chance of going through now.
“This group is still very much alive. We’re only two points behind second spot and it’s all to play for.
“We’ve Rennes at home next and it will be a great night. It’s all to play for and we’ll have our fans behind us.
“They are a great side, but I feel we can win, we proved that here. If we play like we did tonight we’ve a great chance.
“We look at it as a point gained and on another day we could have won it. In the first half we had chances and they didn’t look like scoring.
“We lost a sloppy goal, but we had chances all over the pitch, and we played good football at times too.
“Fraser Forster did really well after the error for their goal and he kept us in the game.
“It was difficult to get over losing the goal, but if it was going to happen it happened at the right time. The gaffer got us in at half-time and had his say.
“There was definitely a different reaction from him tonight than the Kilmarnock game. There were a lot more positives to be taken from this performance.”
Looking back on his goal Ledley added: “The free-kick for my goal was a great ball in from Charlie Mulgrew. There was a lot of pace on it, great whip, and I used the pace of the ball to guide it in.
“Charlie’s been putting those deliveries in all season and it was nice to see it going in.”
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There are two simple rules for passing back to the goalie.
1. Look to see where he is!
2. Pass the ball so it is going outside of the posts.
Its not hard is it
Don’t even need to look, the keeper should be making it clear where he is and where he wants the ball played…60/40 blame for me with Du Ri & Forster…..pathetic goal to concede.
Can’t say I agree with Joe Ledley’s comments about us playing great football and creating chances all over the place though. We can & WILL have to show a huge improvement to qualify. We looked like complete strangers for most of the game rather than a team, tactics were basic to say the least. Clearly we don’t have ball retention at the top of our list in euro games either. But a very welcome if surprising point, although still a helluva lot of work to be done.
You ALWAYS have to look, look what happen when Mulgrew didn’t do that on Saturday!
Good result, created some good chances and showed a bit of fight again. There is still a chance, must win against Rennes and hope udinese upset Atletico is Spain, even a draw would do. Then it comes down to us against Atletico at home and maybe Udinese will be out of sight by the time we play them again.