Former Celtic goalkeeper Pat Bonner had an interesting take on things on BBC Sportsound following last night’s chastening home defeat to Bodø/Glimt in the Europa Conference League. Celtic went down 3-1 at Celtic Park to the Norwegian champions in a game a lot of Celtic fans thought was more than winnable when the draw was made a few months back.

When the names were drawn out and we had time to take a closer look at the Scandinavian side we knew they would be no mugs especially as they had beaten Jose Mourinho’s Roma 6-1 earlier in the competition and had went through the group stages unbeaten. Many of us however looked to the fact that Bodø/Glimt would be in the middle of their pre-season when the games rolled around as an indicator that the draw had been relatively kind to us.

It didn’t take long for both the Celtic fans and the club’s players to realise last night that their earlier results in the competition were no fluke as they started at a higher pace than Celtic and went into an early lead through new striker Runar Espejord. Celtic struggled to match their intensity throughout and the Norwegian side were deserved winners on the night.

Bonner, who spent his entire career at Parkhead, feels that the Celtic players may have underestimated their opponents but that it wouldn’t have taken them long to realise the error of their ways. Talking post match on Sportsound he said:

“There was a lot of talk about Bodo Glimt and how decent they were. And at the back of your mind you’re thinking, ‘Are they really that good?’ “And then suddenly the game starts and you could see that they were decent. And I just think that then Celtic players went, ‘Well we’re gonna be up against it here‘.

“And they just didn’t have the total belief that they’ve had other games. And maybe that in itself, mentally, affected them a little bit. And it just took away from that final piece of our game, that they’ve been brilliant at. They’ve been absolutely brilliant at that. And when you’re on that journey of development there is milestones. You have to sit down and analyse yourselves.

“Back to earth a little bit and say ‘Yeah, we’re a good team, but we have a lot more to do to get better to go and compete at the higher levels.”

Bonner is spot on when he talks about the journey the current Celtic squad are on and the milestones you hit that will improve your development. This current group of players have been riding high recently but you will learn a hell of a lot more from a defeat such as this than you would from a 4-0 canter against Motherwell. It certainly will bring them back to earth with a bang but it is how we deal with this set back that is important.

As Bonner says this will provide an opportunity for the players and the management team to sit down and analyse what went wrong. The manager will be instilling in them that these kind of results can happen when you don’t play with the type of intensity the manager expects everytime they enter the field.

You could see our intensity drop in the second half against Aberdeen and during our Scottish Cup tie with Raith Rovers and this should have acted as a warning to the players but there is no doubt after last night that they understand now what can happen when you are not fully at it.

Hopefully the players will learn from this and can pick up where they left off after beating theRangers at Parkhead a few weeks ago. The title run on will almost certainly go to the wire so Celtic will need to be consistently at their best if they want to prevail.

Conall McGinty