Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic side dominated the Sydney Super Cup match against English Premier League side Everton in the Australian summer sunshine, but passed up numerous opportunities to break the deadlock. Then to make matters worse they lose the match in a penalty shoot-out.
The two most notable opportunities fell to Kyogo early in the second half after outstanding work from Ralston and Haksabanovic gave the Japanese striker a glorious opportunity in front of Begovic’s goal but frustratingly he failed to get a decent connection and the Everton keeper gratefully accepted the let-off.
Then in the closing stages substitute James Forrest refused to give up on the ball as the Everton full-back attempted to usher it out for a goal kick on Celtic’ right hand side. Forrest though used all his experience to pick-pocket the defender and his cross to Abada four yards out with the goal at his mercy and once again the connection was off and the effort went wide.
Jota had smashed a free kick against the Everton crossbar in the first half as Celtic peppered the Everton goal from all angles with the midfield trio of Hatate, O’Riley n Turnbull dominating.
In the entire match Everton didn’t manage an effort on target at Joe Hart’s goal while Celtic forced seven saves from Begovic.
The one booking of the match came when Patterson had a kick at Jota, in a competitive match with a non biased referee (like the ones we have in Scotland) then that would have been a red card. It seemed to have achieved the desire effect though as Jota seemed to go into his shell.
The stadium was around half full with the majority of the 40,000 or so spectators supporting Celtic and making themselves heard for the entire ninety four minutes.
Celtic had strong performances from the two full backs Ralston and Taylor, while Hatate and O’Riley were excellent in the midfield, with outstanding signing and much better than Everton had to offer. Such was Celtic’s dominance, Frank Lampard’s side ended up parking the bus with a 5-4-1 formation.
Celtic really need to find a way to cut out the missed chances, it had shades of Shakhtar away about it when we ended up with a draw that was much less than our play merited.
Giakoumakis missed his this penalty in a row for Celtic to get the shoot-out off to a bad start, while Kean scored for Everton. Then Hatate spot kick hit the post and Cannon scored for the Merseysiders. James Forrest scored but so did Patterson, so it was 3-1 at that stage. Mills missed for Everton and Abada scores so 3-2 then Gordon scored his to in the cup 4-2 on penalties.
Goodnight.
