After a thrilling 45 minutes Celtic went down 3-0 at home to Real Madrid, the current holders of the Champions League.
Ange Postecoglou lived up to his promise, sticking to plan A and and almost got off to a flier when Liel Abada had a first minute chance.
Chris Sutton called the first half correctly with Celtic on the front foot, unfortunately his scoreline prediction of 2-2 proved to be overly optimistic.
Celtic outclassed in the second half but take yourself back a year and it’s a team and a club who have made so much progress under Ange Postecoglou. Real Madrid were ruthless that’s the difference at this level?
— Chris Sutton (@chris_sutton73) September 6, 2022
Callum McGregor struck woodwork but that was as close got although early in the second period Daizen Maeda shot at Thibaut Courtois from eight yards out.
Those chances counted for nothing in the 56th minute when Vinicius Junior put the visitors in front, four minutes later the lead was doubled through Luca Modric.
Going 2-0 down took the wind from Celtic, the atmosphere dropped with Real going further ahead in the 77th minute through Eden Hazard.
Of equal interest was the shock of the night in Leipzig where Shakhtar Donetsk won 4-1 with Marian Shved scoring their first two goals. Next Wednesday Celtic face Shakhtar in neutral Warsaw.
Ange got it wrong! We lost our shape and balance when Maeda came on. He reminds me of a good Scotland player, “2 touch Durie”. Maeda doesn’t have a 1st touch! What disappointed most was he didn’t even do his usual hunting down. His miss was a joke. Not good enough for this level!
Saed looks a better player as Abada does!
The biggest issue was we started the transfer window looking for a holding midfielder (Souza, Vera) then we made it a last choice.
If Abilgaard is good and had arrived 3 weeks earlier he may have played and helped against Modric who is class.
However I have seen enough to suggest we can get to the last 16, Maeda shouldn’t be used as 1st choice or 2nd.
Jota & Saed should be 1st choice & get Abilgaard up to speed before the next Champions league game!
good first half but you must take any chance you get or you get punished big time against these top teams learning curve for ange and the players Madrid really a good team hope ange and the team learned tonight you must pace yourself against these top teams fans again great on to our next game enjoyed our first half second not so good but when you play champions of Europe it was always going to a tough night a bit more tighter in midfield would be a good start against these European teams .
No faith in Uefa after that! I don’t doubt that the so-called UCL is not fair. There was NOTHING between the teams, if anything, Celtic were the better team. Until as glaring a pass-back as you will ever see went unpunished. For me that changed the game. That crowd took heart and went up the park and scored. It is almost as if it had been scripted, that Real knew beforehand that it was going to happen and they took full advantage of it. I’m glad I didn’t pay money to go and watch that, for it would have been wasted. I mean as glaring pass-back as ever you will see! The ref just bottled it. Had he given it and Celtic scored, his card would have been marked and everybody would know it, especially the ref! Sorry, but I wouldn’t pay good money to go and watch that. Absolutely shocking!!
“a goalkeeper is forbidden to handle the ball when passed to them by a team-mate” according to Law 12, Section 2 of the Laws of the Game. Cue Laurel and Hardy theme tune! Dallas you bastard!
The difference at this level was that we were without our talisman and striker, arguably our best player, Kyogo. If Kyogo had played and put away three of those chances we created, in the first half, the score would have been 3-3. And Sutton would almost have called it right!
Your a real joy to read! Talk utter rubbish, a joke, really! Purely negative. We never lost our shape and only a Hun could mention Hun on a Celtic site. Just glad Big Ange is in charge – and thankfully not you!
Have you got it?