Celtic went down to a surprise 2-1 defeat to Sydney FC.
Kyogo Furuhashi opened the scoring in the 23rd minute but a few minutes later the Australian side were back level when Robert Mak was given a clear run at goal before shooting past Ben Siergrist.
The first half half had been incredibly open with chances for both sides, at the break Ange Postecoglou altered things with Matt O’Riley and Reo Hatate replacing Oliver Abildgaard and Yosuke Ideguchi.
Jota and Sead Haksabanovic replaced James Forrest and Liel Abada as Celtic threw everything at the Sydney goal with a succession of near misses and a clear handball denying the hoops the lead.
In virtually their only second half attack Max Burgess cut in from the right flank to curl an unstoppable shot around Siegrist into the top corner of the net.
Celtic threw everything at getting an equaliser but it looked like one of those days when nothing was going to fall their way as they tried for a goal in front of a huge bank of hoops supporters.
CELTIC: Siegrist; Ralston, Welsh, Starfelt, Bernabei; Abildgaard, Ideguchi, Turnbull; Abada, Kyogo, Forrest (c)
It’s basically a glorified training exercise that is helping to keep the players fit during the World Cup break. It is also earning us money – while a certain other club is not only missing out on those funds, but also facing costly legal action for not showing up. As long as we bank the cash and don’t get any injuries from it, the results are largely irrelevant.
Welsh looked to have diving boots on trying to catch the Sydney player, when he cut across him he even had time to turn on to his right foot with Welsh making no attempt at a tackle. We can call it a training game all we like , it was awful. Dominated the ball and the chances , something like 30 attempts and all we had to show for it was a deflected goal. Caught on the break like we do every time in Europe. Ange’s reaction didn’t look he was treating it like a training match, he was fuming and rightly so.
Again Ange has been shown to be tactically unaware and inept. We came up against a manger that has his Sydney side working as a unit, defending together and when the get the ball back they break well and have a couple of decent players.
However under Ange we are wide open and couldn’t keep a barn door shut!
Ange said he had learned and the players had learned from the champions league, well what I just watched was definitely not a manager or team that has learned anything from the champions league. I saw a manager still unwilling to change and play open football that causes Celtic to be beaten again by a side that doesn’t have a 10th of our budget.
The more I watch Ange and this team the more convinced I am that Ange can only beat sides that have a 10th of our budget, not a manager like Martin O’Neil who could go toe to toe with some of the biggest teams in Europe with larger budgets than us!