Officially on duty for BBC Five Live at Anfield, Chris Sutton managed to keep in touch with the events at Celtic Park last night.
After the heights of beating RB Leipzig 3-1 there were justifiable expectations that Celtic could beat Cklub Brugge but that was tempered with the knowledge that the Belgians are a time-served Champions League outfit.
Although this is the third successive season that Celtic have been in the group stage, one win, in a dead rubber over 12 matches didn’t inspire confidence.
There is absolutely no doubt that Celtic were well short of their best against Brugge, in a roundabout way there is a lot to be admired and taken from getting a point in those circumstances.
If you can’t win, don’t lose… maybe a valuable point for Celtic. Tremendous goal from Daizen Maeda????
— Chris Sutton (@chris_sutton73) November 27, 2024
It would be hard to make a case for any Celtic player hitting top form, the midfield three were snuffed out, especially in the first half with Nicolas Kuhn closed down instantly as soon as the ball was played his way.
After 59 minutes Brendan Rodgers decided to change things, in the 60th minute the hoops were level as Daizen Maeda cut inside and fired in his third goal of the campaign.
After five matches Celtic have picked up eight points and are on course for a place in the Round of 16 Play Offs, provided they maintain the levels that have taken them into consideration.
That was 2 points that got away from us,but a point is better than none.
As for the own goal this is what happens when you fanny about inside your own 18 yard box and try playing around in it instead of just getting it to fuck up the field when being pressure,and Brugge had been doing that.
You don’t always need to play it out from the back sometimes a bit of Wimbledon football tactics needs to be played and this was one of those times.
On another issue now I see the BOOOZE JOCKEY Bomber Alkie Brown has shown up for a special guest star appearance at the daily sevco to tell Kojak how to get sevco back on a winning streak,ah thought he was deed,pardon the pun.
Celtic’s ‘fannying about’ at the back has been an accident waiting to happen. One of these days Schmeichel is going to get caught out by a long range chip into the net when he has abandoned his goal playing sweeper.
We hardly turned their fullback the whole game, Khun and Maeda receiving the ball with back to goal and fullback up their rears… Surely a wee diagonal now and again would have been the solution, use our speed and make them think? Last night was evidence that we can’t play out EVERY time?!
I said much the same coming away from the game. If we qualify it could well be by a single point – that point. I don’t think a win in Zagreb is out of the question either. On the subject of the Villa match, if we need something from that match and they have already qualified by then – both of which are entirely possible – they have a W Mids derby against a Wolves side coming back into form the following Saturday and may have one eye on that so I don’t regard that as a foregone conclusion at all. We’ve got some skin in the game!