Fran Alonso provided an honest assessment of his side’s 3-0 defeat away to runaway league leaders theRangers yesterday afternoon in a result that edges the big spending theRangers closer to their first ever major honour – they’ll be running around re-using their 55 flags presumably.
With a budget of £1.2m theRangers were able to recruit strongly bringing in many established international performers – many from 14 in a row Scottish Champions Glasgow City – and while Celtic have favoured a home grown, develop our own policy – money appears to have talked in the Scottish game as far as the new destination of the title is concerned.
The last time theRangers lost a league match was the last game of last season, when a victory would have ensure that Celtic were the Champions, so it’s no surprise that they took nothing from that afternoon.
In Fran Alonso Celtic clearly have the outstanding coach in the league. His record against theRangers is exceptional and even after a bruising 3-0 defeat Fran managed to deliver one or two blows in his post match interview, pointing out that Celtic are essentially the only club win the country that can win two trophies this season and noting that that would be regarded as a hugely successful and historic campaign for the Hoops.
Alonso’s side of course knocked theRangers out of both the League Cup and the Scottish Cup already this season.
The Celtic Manager also revealed that he is not a fan of the playing surface over at Murray Park describing is like this: “it is a difficult pitch, it’s not the best pitch, the surface is not good to play football,” which is rather amusing given the pride and admiration that their supporters have for the place.
“For me the most important thing is the result, that’s the fourth time we’ve played here and we’ve always won until today and we felt that we’d win today again. I thought that we were unlucky. I don’t think they were the better team today but they were more clinical than us. I can’t believe the scoreline in the end. We had clear chances but we didn’t put them away and at the end we are devastated at the defeat, which doesn’t reflect what we saw on the pitch, but it’s zero points for us and it’s a sad day.”
“If you don’t take your chances you drop points and today was another example of that against a very good team. I’m disappointed. I can’t blame the attitude of the players, I thought even at 2-0 it was hard to take because I don’t think we deserved that. But we kept fighting and in my opinion we played the better football but good football doesn’t mean anything if you don’t get the three points and today we didn’t.”
Even when his team went 3-0 down the Celtic players heads didn’t drop and they kept taking the game to theRangers right to the end of the match. That impressed but didn’t surprise Fran Alonso. “That something you can’t take from this team. We are fighters, until the final whistle we will always keep fighting regardless of the result. As I say today I don’t think that the result is a reflection of the game. In the past we’ve had to score two goals in injury time (to get a result). So until the final whistle we will always believe and will always keep fighting. But today wasn’t our day, everything went against us.
“We have to move on and try to put on a better, more clinical performance next week.
“We are the only team in the country that can win two competitions – maybe Glasgow City as well (But their chances of winning the league were reduced by yesterday’s win for theRangers over Celtic). “We will try to get into the final of the (Scottish) Cup and try to win both clubs,” (the League Cup as won in December with Celtic knocking out theRangers, holders Hibs and beating current Champions Glasgow City in the final). “That would be an outstanding, historical season and that is our goal and of course try to win every league game until the end of the season.”
“The message is, Ghirls don’t be heart-broken. They fought hard, they played well at times, I know that they can play better but it is a difficult pitch, it’s not the best pitch, the surface is not good to play football. They were more clever, they know their surface, they were more direct and tried to fight for second balls. We tried to play and at times we lost the ball in dangerous positions.
“But it is important that they don’t lose faith, they are not heart-broken, we were the underdogs, the fact that we beat them five times as the underdogs doesn’t mean that we can beat them every time. They are a better team than us on paper and it is very difficult to beat them and today we saw that. It’s important to pick up the morale and be ready for next week.”
Watch Fran Alonso speaking to Celtic TV after yesterday defeat at Murray Park below. Next up for Celtic FC Women is a trip to play Aberdeen in the SWPL at the Balmoral Stadium on Sunday 6 March, kick-off 4pm. And it’s the same opposition at the same venue in the Sottish Cup quarter finals at the start of April. COYGIG.
