It was a fifth successive away game for Aberdeen but after the hard-fought 2-2 draw against PAOK on Thursday night in Greece, Barry Robson was not for making excuses and admitted that he was “massively surprised” by the result at Celtic Park.
Brendan Rodgers' team strolled to victory after the champions won 6-0 in Glasgow.
Robson said: “You can look for excuses, but I’m not having that. Yes, we all know where we have been, but we still can’t come here and perform like that. So I’m not having that, either.
“It was a result I never saw coming at all. That is the biggest surprise, I never saw that coming.
“I am just angry because it is not us as a team. You have to learn that you can’t leave yourselves open, you have to learn to shut the back door and not lose more goals.
“I just think the first 15 minutes, we were not at it. We didn’t get close to anyone. Never put a tackle in and, as the half went on, got slightly better.
“Half-time, we tweaked a few tactical things and thought we started to look a lot better in the second half and then lost the penalty.
“And then I thought after that Celtic ran away with it and it was not good enough.
“Once you lose that third goal, you have got to get a structure, you’ve got to stay in the fight and we just looked too open. It looked like they could score every time.”
“I said to the players before the game, throughout your footballing season and life you have painful points, but how you respond is where you are judged,” said Rodgers, who revealed Furuhashi would not be travelling to Japan this week to stay behind for treatment for a head knock which saw him taken off.
“If you look after St Johnstone here (0-0) we go to Rangers and win, after Feyenoord away (0-2) we go to Livingston and win.
“Obviously we had a challenging game in midweek just because of the circumstances.
“It is then how you respond today. I thought the players responded so well. They’ve done great in the game, created numerous opportunities.
“Look at Aberdeen’s record, especially away from home. Look at how tough they are to beat. They go to Frankfurt and do well, they go to Rangers and win.
“So they are a team who are tough to play against. But I thought our players today were absolutely fantastic. They showed some great football, great movement, great connection in the team. I was so pleased for them.”
