RYAN CHRISTIE, while giving well deserved credit to Valencia for executing their game-plan at Celtic Park on Thursday night, nevertheless believes that The Celtic players have no-one to blame but themselves for allowing themselves to be suckered by two devastatingly effective counter attacks after basic Celtic errors allowed the La Liga side in.
And the lesson is clear – make these kind of mistakes at this level of football and you will be punished.
“Valencia came with a really good game plan. For a team to be playing 4-4-2, you’d think we could open them up, but we found it so difficult to break them down.
“We can only blame ourselves, though, because our discipline on the ball and lack of control cost us in the end. “It’s two counter-attacks we lose the goals from,” Christie stated to the media.
“We’re disappointed because we wanted a result at home. But we don’t have much time to think about it. We need to switch on for Kilmarnock.
“We’ll turn it around and be positive by the time we get to the game over in Spain. We’ll try to learn from Thursday. I wouldn’t say we took risks, it was more that towards the end of the first half and into the second, when they were more dropping off the game and we were forcing it, that the mistakes came.
“It’s a learning curve. Going into the game, one of the things you’re looking forward to is coming up against top- class players, so for all that we are deflated with the result, it’s all part of your education.
“We need to make sure it’s not just a defeat, it’s something we learn from. It’s tough to play at domestic level every week then step up to this level. You start OK, but you can lose composure.”
“Ask any player and they’ll say they prefer grass to astroturf, but at the same time it’s been in the league for a few years and we’re all used to it.
“I certainly played a lot on astroturf through my youth and at that age it’s not really spoken about.
“It’s the same surface for both teams and I don’t really get caught up in it all. It’s out of my hands. It’s for the powers above to sort it.”
With the Rangers stealing a point against an impressive St Johnstone at Ibrox yesterday the gap has now been reduced to 5 points with Celtic having played a game less. A win today will see Celtic go 8 points clear and that would mean that the Rangers would need to win ALL of their games – including home and away against Celtic AND still hope for one or two favours from elsewhere if they had to get a sniff of the title.
Steven Gerrard yesterday admitted that the title race is over. He’ll be glued to his television today though hoping that Kilmarnock can do his new club a huge favour which would mean it would be back in their own hands.
Three points today Celtic please, and we can all worry about Valencia after that!
Also on The Celtic Star…
Celtic on This Day – Fifers run out of fight, Harry Hood bursts the net
The Valencia file (Part 7) – The flashing head of Cesar breaks Vojvodina hearts
Long Ball! ‘We have permission to go longer if it’s on,’ admits Celtic keeper
