Damning pictures have emerged of the horrendous defending that sent Celtic crashing out of the Champions League in Athens.
Without question the loss of the first goal to Rodrigo Galo was preventable, you don’t need to be a coaching geek to see how avoidable that goal was. Rewind seven days to the first leg for the template.
Some stills of the 1st goal. Lustig is being blamed for allowing a cross in. But when the ball is played AEK have 1 player in the box, to 6 Celtic defenders.
What in gods name were Ntcham, McGregor and Tierney doing? The AEK player should never have got anywhere near that ball. pic.twitter.com/oItM4QVlKn
— Moravcik67 (@Moravcik67_) August 14, 2018
As the picture shows there were just two AEK players in the Celtic penalty box but they knew exactly why they were there and what they were doing.
When AEK aimed towards the touchline Mikael Lustig was unable to prevent the ball being cut back into the Celtic penalty box.
His pass/cut back escaped Jozo Simunovic, Jack Hendry was held at bay by one attacker and suddenly Kieran Tierney and Olivier Ntcham were unable to close down Galo as he shot low and firm past Craig Gordon.
As simple as that.
Everyone had been warned but seemed unable to prevent.
With that goal it was inevitable that Celtic were heading out.
Similar basic mistakes cost them the second goal as a cheaply conceded free kick wasn’t properly defended, two headers later and AEK were in the play-off round for the Champions League.
For Celtic there is now the prospect of working on a new defence on the Thursday night’s of autumn- assuming that the strikers and midfielders can outscore the goals lost at the back during the Europa League play-off.
Here’s a vid of the goal. The scorer is the number 12 who plays the pass from the touchline back into the centre. Watch his movement, and the space he has around the edge of our box. pic.twitter.com/kM58xam3WZ
— Moravcik67 (@Moravcik67_) August 14, 2018