The game was done after unjust Maeda red, but to lose in that manner is still unacceptable…
That was a sore one to take. Yes it’s up there with the 7-0 thumping by Barca, the 7-1 humiliation by PSG. All three opponents were top quality sides but that doesn’t excuse losing so heavily, back then or indeed last night.
It was always going to be a tough ask to get something tonight as Atletico are a class act, but after our superb showing against Diego Simone’s men a fortnight ago there was what turned out to be an unfounded sense of optimism amongst our support.
That all soon evaporated as with just six minutes on the clock Antoine Griezmann opened the scoring and from then on in, we knew it was going to be a long night ahead of us.
It got even worse not long after when Daizen Maeda was sent off after VAR intervened and upgraded his yellow to a red. It really was a bewildering decision. It was never a red card, never in a million years. It was a shocker of a decision.
That ultimately changed the dynamic of the game, we were always on a hiding to nothing and that’s what we got, six zip to be exact. It was woeful and painful to watch. Yes the sending off had an impact but we shouldn’t be losing in that manner. It’s as if we just gave up and accepted the inevitable after their second goal.
That is unacceptable and it’s concerning that it’s yet another hammering under the leadership of Brendan Rodgers. I’d thought he’d learned something from his last spell regarding competing in Europe, but clearly not, it’s just the same old story.
We’re still technically in the mix for some form of European football after Christmas, but in all honesty it’s well outwith our reach and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Last year Ange Postecoglou promised we’d be better prepared for the Champions League but we appear to have gone backwards with project signings rather than top quality arrivals being signed in a summer where Celtic did have the money in the bank to do something significant to make nights like last night avoidable.
But it was not to be and last night we paid the price as we watched our team perform in black against a side playing in red. Can someone explain what is the purpose of a black kit for Celtic?
Maybe if we looked like Celtic, there would have been more pride shown in our jersey.
Just an Ordinary Bhoy
Was hoping to avoid one of those pumpings we got last night in this years CL, but it has happened. I think up until last night we had showed up not too bad in the three previous games. Have seen some fans saying we cannot compete at this level, which I think the previous games in this group proves is not the case.
In our opening game in Holland we were very comfortable, in fact Feyenoord never looked like scoring until the free kick on the stroke of half time, then the red cards killed us.
We know what happened in the two home games, lost one and drew one, who doesn’t think we competed in those games, we did.
Our European record has been poor these last few years, but this has been largely the norm for over forty years, it is not a new thing as some fans seem to think. We were rank rotten in Europe for more than two decades until Martin became our manager, 2003 was the first time in 23 years we had European football after Christmas.
Apart from short spells under Martin, Gordon Strachan and lenny we have been pretty poor, this will probably never change due to any players we have that perform on the Euro stage being sold making it hard to build a team for Europe that not only has quality, but also has experience at that level.
We have two games left in this group, we need to win one of these games for the confidence it would give the players. I have seen a glimmer of light in the three previous games that IF Brendan is backed with money in the transfer windows and at least three quality players are added we could compete next season in the expanded CL if we are in it, or if it is the Europa we could more than hold our own.