It was a disappointing night for Celtic in Germany as they went down 3-1 to RB Leipzig, with the key second goal coming from their own error.
Jota had fired the Hoops level shortly after the break. Christian Nkunku opened the scoring after seeing an initial strike ruled out by VAR. The system came to Celtic’ s rescue again in the second half, ruling out Dominik Szoboszlai’s sweet effort due to Andre Silva blocking Hart’s view from an offside position.
31 seconds later however, it was 2-1. Hart tried to play from the back and gave away possession. He was punished by Silva, who slotted home to banish the disappointment he’d been feeling half-a-minute earlier. The Portuguese then finished off a fine team move from the hosts to put the game beyond Ange Postecoglou’s men and leave them propping up Champions League Group F ahead of next week’s meeting of the sides at Celtic Park.
Former Celtic boss Gordon Strachan and Paul Lambert were the guests in the BT Studio. Lambert, who won this competition with Dortmund as a player, believes Postecoglou needs to perhaps be more practical in his approach if he ultimately wants success at this level.
Strachan however, insisted that he has to stick to his guns. The entertainment value is worth it alone as far as the ex-Scotland manager is concerned. And he believes playing more defensively would see Celtic create far less chances than they currently do - they just need to take them.
Paul Lambert
“Celtic have a major problem in the middle of the park, they’re wide open. That’s the way Ange wants to play, so it’s not a problem.
“You need to decide sometimes if you want to go long or want to go short.
“You want to play winning football. You want to win prizes and trophies at the end of it. If you play that open, you’re vulnerable to get hurt.
“Joe Hart has been brilliant for ~Celtic so you can’t argue with that. He’s tried to play the way the manager wants but there’s a time and a place I think, when you do it.
“You’re playing at the highest level of competition ever and one mistake, it’s a goal.”
Gordon Strachan
“You have two teams, and they're both positive and attacking and attack brilliantly but they don't defend well.
“It's a question of who scores the goals - they had the better finishers.
“Celtic played with two wide men and one through the middle and they played with four people close together. It shows that it's not a system that win games of football, it's players.”
“If you look at the Leipzig player, he’s veering to go right but he knows wants to go left and for Joe to play in there. There’s a cleverness about the play to do that.
“The argument is, if you think about it, it must be 30-odd chances they’ve had. I agree with Paul to a certain extent, but if they take four chances, that is it.
“So it’s really down to players and finishing. We have to admire the way they play. We love it. We turn up knowing we’re going to get a game. The fans get a good game. The neutrals get a good game.
“If you sit a certain player there, you might not get the chances going forward. There's two different systems attack-wise. It’s down to finishing and good players.”
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