Ange Postecoglou refused to sugar coat Celtic’s 2-1 defeat from Sydney FC when he was interviewed for the club’s in-house TV service.
Despite a few prompts from the interviewer the Celtic boss had to repeat that his side were nowhere near it during the defeat from the A-League side.
With Kyogo the only real regular in the starting XI the first half looked like a basketball match as each side raced up the park to take pots at goal.
Kyogo Furuhashi was denied a couple of times by the Sydney goalkeeper while the crossbar twice came to Celtic’s rescue.
Midway through the fist half Kyogo deflected a shot from Alexandro Bernabei into the net with his chest but three minutes later the homeside levelled when Robert Mak had virtually a free run at goal.
Matt O’Riley and Reo Hatate came into the midfield at half-time with Sead Haksabanovic and Jota put on the wings.
Celtic swarmed around the Sydney goal but couldn’t get the ball over the line, on the hour mark on a rare break forward Max Burgess came in off the right flank to curl a great shot around Ben Siegrist into the far corner of the net.
It was fair to say that we were nowhere near the level we needed to be. It was an entertaining game and there was plenty of goalmouth action for both teams, but we were well off it today.
To Sydney’s credit I thought they were the better team in the first half and they deserved to win. We were well off it no matter, whether it’s a player who has or hasn’t been playing.
We were nowhere near where we need to be. In football if you are not then you don’t get the outcome you need. We will recover from this and get ready for Sunday.
We will have a session on Saturday and prepare as we always do. We will make sure we are in the right mindset.
Honest as ever. No need for excuses!