“I’m hoping I get a reaction from our players after Thursday night and I’m sure I will,” Neil Lennon said. “I hope they’re angry. When they play angry they can be very good.
“They had Friday off and now they need to get their minds refocused on trying to retain the Scottish Cup. But I’m looking for a reaction, that’s for sure.
“I’m still bitterly disappointed to have gone out on Thursday, but we have to get over that because we only have ourselves to blame. We were in control of that game and gave the impetus away through our own fault. It was just crazy,” the gaffer told the Media, as reported by Glasgow Times.
Artur Dias seems to have made a big mistake on disallowing Callum McGregor’s goal and that upset the Celtic manager, especially as the Portuguese referee could have consulted with VAR, which of course was available to him.
If he had done that, taken a moment to have a look just to be sure, he’s have had THREE options open to him:
1. AWARD THE GOAL – As there was no foul on Karl-Johan Johnsson.
2. DISALLOW THE GOAL – As he backed his initial judgement that Christopher Jullien had barged into the back of the Copenhagen keeper.
3. AWARD A PENALTY TO CELTIC – as Karl-Johan Johnsson had wrestled Odsonne Edouard to the floor before any contact was made from Jullien.
You have to ask yourself why he didn’t take a look to make sure he reached the correct decision.
“I wondered why it wasn’t allowed even at the time,” Lenny said. “That would have put us in the ascendency and it was a great finish from Callum so I was very disappointed with that decision. The ball had already gone past their goalkeeper and been headed away when he went down.
“We then got a definite penalty and I was thinking ‘great we’ve got what we deserved’. That came after making a mistake for the first goal.”
The tie looked to be turning in Celtic’s favour at that stage only for quite unbelievably, the players would quickly shoot themselves in the foot.
“If we couldn’t win in the 90 minutes we should have been taking it to extra-time, but our game-management after that was really poor.
“We needed to calm down, but I was trying to say that to them for the whole of the second-half. We got too anxious and started chasing the game too much. We just needed to manage the game after scoring the penalty and be composed but we did the exact opposite.
“We looked leggy late on too, but I think that’s psychological, I really do. The third goal is academic after the second goal which was the ice-breaker.
“We created some good chances, but just lacked punch in the first-half. I was actually quite pleased with the first-half performance. Copenhagen defended well and their goalkeeper made some good saves.
“We were forcing the game the way I wanted them to and I said to them at half-time that if they could just keep a clean sheet they were through. But then we made a glaring error before shooting ourselves in the foot at the end. I just didn’t see that coming.”
Every Celtic campaign in Europe ends in heartache – well, all except one. And Neil Lennon reflecting on this one is still in a glass half full mode. “It’s been a good Euro campaign. I think we’ve made really good strides. That’s the most disappointing aspect of going out, when you think of the calibre of teams we’ve beaten.
“But when you give away goals the way we did on Thursday then it’s tough. I just didn’t think Copenhagen deserved anything out of the game, but we were punished by mistakes of our own making.
“But we have to channel this defeat now. It’s my job to make sure we do that. I have a duty of care to these players too because they have been magnificent for me. They have given me everything.”
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