Chris Sutton fears that the Celtic squad ave resigned themselves to being third rate in the Champions League.
In a strange way losing 1-0 at home to Anderlecht seems to have deflated the fans more than losing 7-1 away to Paris Saint Germain.
The Belgian champions couldn’t call on Neymar with no real comfort to be drawn from losing at home to a side spectacularly taken apart earlier in the campaign.
There is no denying that the richer European clubs are becoming more dominant but over 90 minutes Sutton believes that Celtic should always be able to compete with the acceptance of the PSG defeat impacting on the attitude against Anderlecht.
Writing in the Daily Record Sutton explained: “At best Celtic have hit a plateau in Europe – at worst they have gone backwards.
“It was job done in terms of being in the Europa League in the New Year but if I was still in a Celtic shirt and was looking back at this year’s group I would feel nothing but a sense of total disappointment.
“There have been too many times when too many players simply haven’t turned up and the most worrying thing for me has been this culture of acceptance.
“It’s not acceptable to lose at home to Anderlecht. It certainly wasn’t acceptable to lose fives and sevens to PSG.
“An hour in Belgium and a decent display against Bayern Munich at home was the sum total of the campaign and there’s no way you can dress it up as anything other than a disappointment.
“But it’s this shrugging of the shoulders and acceptance of certain results that gets me angry.
“Don’t give me this b******s about budgets. I’m sick of hearing it. If it was just about the budgets then don’t bother turning up.
“The alarm bells were going off after PSG put seven past them and the players came out with this stuff about the French side being too good to live with.
“They shouldn’t be talking up the opposition – they should be looking at themselves. If you are going to simply put the hands up and say there’s no chance of competing, then what’s the point of being there in he first place?
“Just write to UEFA now and say we’ll take the £30m thanks but we’ll not bother playing in the games, thank you very much. It’s utter nonsense.”
On Sunday Celtic take their 67 match unbeaten domestic run to Easter Road to face Hibs before finding out on Monday who they will play in the last 32 of the Europa League.