Former Celtic winger Aiden McGeady reckons Brendan Rodgers' side are already facing the consolation prize of the Europa League.
The Scottish champions suffered a nightmare 2-1 defeat to Lazio last night after dominating large spells of the Parkhead encounter.
Luis Palma thought he had given the Scottish champions an 81st-minute lead but it was ruled offside by a lengthy VAR check when the officials decided Daizen Maeda had helped on Alistair Johnston’s cross.
There was a bigger blow to follow five minutes into stoppage-time when Pedro robbed Cameron Carter-Vickers before spraying the ball out wide and running into the box to head home the resulting cross.
Kyogo Furuhashi’s early opener had been cancelled out by Matias Vecino following a 29th-minute corner.
McGeady feels there were positives for Celtic, but he ultimately feels the club will now struggle to qualify out of the group.
He said on BBC Sportsound: “There are some positives to take but when you look at the group you think it’s been a bad start for the team.
“You think over the first two games, these games could be a springboard for their European campaign and now they have two very difficult games coming up - a double header against Atletico Madrid.
“But when you look at the group, no one is running away with it and it’s still very tight.
“There are still a lot of games left, Celtic will be hoping to get out of the group but at the minute it’s maybe looking towards the Europa League and ultimately not looking to finish bottom.”
On Carter-Vickers' error for the winning goal, McGeady added: “It’s an absolute hammer blow isn’t it? Sod's law as well when Carter-Vickers comes on and ultimately it’s his mistake, his error that leads to the goal.
“I don’t think there was much between the teams over the 90 minutes, Celtic played well at times.
“Palma was unlucky not to get the winner with the disallowed goal.”
