Alistair Johnston has joined Callum McGregor in condemning Celtic for the manner of their 6-0 defeat to Atletico Madrid.
Normally players can be relied on to deflect away from failing but the defeat in Madrid and the manner of the second half collapse has jarred a nerve with the Canadian international.
Playing in the Champions League should be a career highlight but after losing heavily to Atletico there is an ominous look about the match away to Lazio at the end of this month.
Even allowing for the red card shown to Daizen Maeda there were worrying signs for the Celtic boss in Tuesday’s defeat with Johnston telling The Sun some of the issues raised in the dressing room:
It was the toughest defeat in my time at Celtic, for sure. In my career I’ve never had a game like that, where they were just doing whatever they wanted to you.
It was frustrating and difficult, because it feels like you can’t get the ball, you can’t get in their half, and it’s just wave after wave. That is something we were so disappointed with. Even going down to ten men, we should not have conceded that much territory and that many chances.
We need to look at ourselves in the mirror, individually and collectively, and figure out what we want to do, because that was unacceptable.
But if you don’t take anything away from it, then it really was a wasted night. Win or lose, you have take something from every game to grow as a group.
Atletico are a really talented group. They have World Cup winners in there and they really punished us.
You could all see what the level is between ourselves and a team that is aiming to win the tournament, never mind get out of the group.
For us, we have to look at it and realise there were levels, but there were also mistakes we made we can clean up.
Celtic return to the comfort of domestic action on Sunday when they face Aberdeen who are in action away to PAOK tonight.
Domestic matches are clearly providing very little preparation for the Champions League but that is the conundrum that Rodgers faces with two more group stage matches to be played.
K.T.F.??
I’d ask Alistair johnston to watch the game again ,and watch himself and he how lack lustre he was in chasing back ,ive watched him all season and when teams are attacking us after us losing the ball high up the pitch, he just saunters back hoping someone else already at the back will deal with it ,so before he lays blame else where ask him to watch maybe our last few games and see his part in it all
The players better get used to this type of defeat under Rodgers as he has a history of failing badly in the CL. Instead of improving the team he has taken us back to pre Ange days with his back passing and tactics like playing Kyogo much deeper . You can see Kyogo is unhappy not only with his position but the lack of service he gets . Watch this space Kyogo, Harare and O’Rielly will be off.
Aye Alistair and your one of them who needs to take a long hard look at yourself, because you have been rank rotten since you came back into the team in fact all season you have been poor
First up…No Celtic player should talk to The Sun….End of…Secondly…Now you know how we feel Alistair..We’ve been watching the gulf in class for years…Time to accept that winning the League year after year should be our goal…The CL is way beyond us.
Yes, keeper as an example. Wasted £4.5M on a Greek midget. Joe, nice guy , at 37 is over the hill. We have had plenty time to replace him. Yet we never budged!
In fact we possibly had his successor in the reserves, a guy who came through the Youth Academy and kept goal for us in the 2020? Scottish Cup final, winning a penalty shoot out. But couldn’t get games for our first team against other Scottish premiership clubs.
Who is running the football operation? The Jack of Hearts?
There is no cohesion, no sign of progression or joined-up thinking. And no-one to answer for it or it seems to take the responsibility for it.
The bottom line is that the Club is taking the supporters for mugs, (for some time now), and now, it seems, the players as well.
When are we going to waken up?
I hate to admit it and say it but since I started supporting Celtic in 1980 Sevco have pretty much lorded it over us in sourcing goalkeepers…
Pretty much every one they’ve got has been decent – even Butland now as well…
We have had a few decent ones but nothing like them –
Fortunately in the more important stakes – Trophies – Celtic are well ahead of them in that race – Certainly ahead of Sevco but also The deceased (c.2012) Rangers I
Goalkeepers!
Would Celtic fans accepting winning nothing for the next five years?
It could happen!
I woke up over a year ago maister…but your points are well made…Hail hail.
Yeah, but what are you doing about it though?