If I were Ange Postecoglou, I’d be pretty p****d off. If I was one of the Celtic players in the aftermath of the Champions League exit, I’d have been even more p****d off.
Listen, I’m not running around throwing flowers at Celtic because, at the end of the day, they will finish bottom of Group F. They have come up short. Football is a results business and, if you don’t get them, it is right that performances are scrutinised and displays analysed.
That’s the problem. I don’t see much analysis. People are generalising Scottish football and just lumping results all into one bracket. Wrong. Coming out with phrases like disaster and humiliating for all. It is lazy and it is stupid. I’m hearing pundits south of the border making statements about the Scottish game being fourth tier and it’s just plain ignorance. If that wasn’t bad enough, my old pal Ally McCost agreed with one of them this week. Are you joking, Ally?
Postecoglou is trying to implement a style and adopt a positive approach that can make Celtic better in Europe now and the future. He said they were going to try and play their way and they have done so.
Fair enough, they are out, but you cannot seriously tell me they have been outclassed, or out of their depth, or been cannon fodder? Could you look at any of the five performances that Postecoglou’s team have put up and called them a disaster? Or a nightmare?
If you do, if you match them up and lazily stick them in the same basket with Rangers’ weak performance in Amsterdam, or lack of ambition at Anfield, or capitulation at home to Liverpool, or Motherwell losing to Sligo, Dundee United’s seven in Alkmaar, you either didn’t watch the games or you don’t have the first clue about football.
The improvements in Celtic since Postecoglou took over are stark. They were an absolute shambles in the Europa League the year before he took over. Last season’s effort offered signs of what he was trying to do and they have been brave enough to take it into the bigger stage.
Fine margins. That’s what it is. You can’t expect to go into the competition with a fresh batch of players and set the world alight. It is going to take time, but the key is to put the right things in place. Stay true to the beliefs and build from there.
Did you watch Shakhtar Donetsk the other night? The bravery they displayed in playing out from the back was exemplary and even made Postecoglou look positively cautious. But that’s the point. It’s trying to do it right and they got their rewards.
They haven’t taken points from Real Madrid and hammered RB Leipzig just for nothing. They are growing as a young side and have an exceptional talent at the top of the pitch in Mykhaylo Mudryk. Guys like him are those fine margins at Champions League level.
Mudryk had three chances in two games against Celtic. He smashed two of them past Joe Hart and put the third on an absolute plate for his sub colleague Danylo Sinak to miss the easiest chance I’ve ever seen squandered.
Mudryk was clinical. That’s why Shakhtar are still able to qualify and Celtic not. Fine margins.
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Let me ask you this, if Mudryk played for Celtic in those two games, would Postecoglou’s team have got six points? I’d say there’s a fair chance the answer is yes because the teams matched up elsewhere across the pitch. In fact, you could argue Postecoglou’s team were marginally better.
Leipzig were better than Celtic in both matches between the pair, but it was tight in periods. Mistakes, such as Joe Hart’s lapse in Germany, were punished. They competed properly in defeat against the best of the lot in Real Madrid.
Unfortunately for Celtic, they didn’t have an individual to offer that decisive spark often enough like Mudryk. Or a Vinicius Junior, or a Christopher Nkunku. But you put the system in place and then you build year on year. You add the quality.
You find your own Mudryk next summer and he takes over from, say, Daizen Maeda. You keep improving the individuals within the system and, naturally, you improve as a unit. I also look at Hearts, who have gone into their Europa League group and Robbie Neilson has been trying to implement a style and a system this season.
These things take time. They have been hammered on occasions, such as five in Florence, and they have had to soak up bloody noses. But Neilson is trying to make Hearts better. You might have to take some sore ones along the way, but it’s the only way to improve.
We all want Scottish football to get better and, to do so, it takes time, experience and a plan. What would you prefer? Hearts to stick nine men across their own 18-yard line, dig it out and score from a set-piece to win 1-0?
That might get you one night of celebration, but it’s not going to bring you any long-term success. Hibs tried to do it right at Parkhead and lost 6-1. What do you do? Just rip it up and start again?
No, you stick to what you believe and try to make it better so that, in a couple of seasons, Lee Johnson might be able to take his team to face Celtic and go toe to toe with success. At worst, he’ll have put something in place for his successor to do so. If not, why bother trying? Celtic have competed. They are playing a way they believe they need to reach the levels of the best.
Finance, of course, means they will not get to the very top. But they have shown that, by sticking to this ideal and adding the right players to it, they may just be able to grow as Postecoglou wants and make a proper impact in terms of results with improvements and experience.
Real might smash them on Wednesday, but I’ll have still seen enough to feel that Celtic are on the right path. Ultimately, it’s not been enough in this campaign. In key aspects, they’ve not been as perfect as they had to be.
But to simply lump their results in alongside some of the other debacles? If I was in that Celtic dressing room and heard anyone doing that, I’d be pretty p****d off myself.
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