THE GERMAN media may have been impressed by the traveling support in Munich this week but they certainly were not impressed by the guys on the park. It is fair to say that the Celtic players were savaged in the German Press following their three-goal defeat in Munich.
Top-selling newspaper Bild thought only two Hoops stars in the starting line-up deserved pass marks while eight were labelled “deficient” and one was rated “insufficient”.
The journal uses the German school grading system as they pass judgement on a player’s performance.
Very good is rated 1 while 2 is good, 3 is average, 4 is passable but still lacking, 5 is deficient and 6 is insufficient.
A 6 is the lowest possible grade meaning that not only were things not up to standard, but there was even a failure to understand the basics.
Scott Sinclair and Patrick Roberts were the top Hoops performers, according to Bild, with both achieving four.
Craig Gordon, Cristian Gamboa, Mikael Lustig, Dedryck Boyata, Kieran Tierney, Scott Brown, Stuart Armstrong and Leigh Griffiths rated five.
However, Olivier Ntcham, Brendan Rodgers’ £4.5million signing from Manchester City, failed to impress and was given a six.
The defeat to Bayern Munich now means that Celtic have conceded a landslide TWENTY-FOUR goals in nine Champions League Group games over two seasons.
By contrast, the Hoops team that conquered Europe in 1967 lost a meagre five over the same amount of matches throughout their unforgettable campaign.
Craig Gordon has kept one clean sheet in the encounters – last month’s 3-0 victory over Anderlecht in Brussels.
The Scotland international was missing last season when the Parkhead side played their first group encounter in three years against Barcelona at the Nou Camp on September 13.
Dutchman Dorus de Vries, bought from Nottingham Forest the previous month, was beaten seven times in the club’s heaviest loss in a European encounter.
Lionel Messi (3), Luis Suarez (2), Neymar and Andres Iniesta piled the misery on Brendan Rodgers’ team.
That was the one and only time that Brendan Rodgers has attempted to park the bus in a match while hanging Celtic.
Gordon took over the gloves for the next game two weeks later, a thrilling 3-3 draw with Manchester City. Borussia Monchendbach won 2-0 in Glasgow the following month.
The Hoops fought out a 1-1 draw in Germany on November 1 and completed their unsuccessful campaign with an identical result against City at the Etihad.
In between, Messi had claimed two more – one a penalty-kick – in Barca’s 2-0 triumph in Glasgow on November 23.
This season’s first group game was against big-money Paris Saint-Germain who inflicted a 5-0 defeat on Rodgers’ men – their heaviest loss in a European tie at home.
Gordon then shut out Anderlecht before the midweek 3-0 collapse against Bayern Munich.
However as unpleasant as all this is to recall, Brendan set out the target at the start of the season. He wanted to make sure that Celtic were still playing European football after Christmas.
For that to happen, after the draw was made, anyone looking at the first three fixtures would have stated that Celtic would need to get a point away to Anderlecht to be on course.
This would allow his the opportunity to look to the Belgian champions visit to Glasgow in December as a chance to pick up three points and qualify for the Europa League.
That’s obviously assuming that neither Celtic nor Anderlecht would be taking anything from the top tow seeds.
Well Celtic don’t have one point we have three, from two away games and one at home and in the head to head with Anderlecht we are 3-0 up.
The Belgian Champions have two away fixtures, in Paris and Glasgow and a home tie against Bayern Munich. Realistically they need to get something from that match and then win on Glasgow, and hope that Celtic lose all three games remaining.
That’s a big ask for Anderlecht.
For the record, Celtic’s legendary goalie Ronnie Simpson was beaten by Nantes (2), Vojvodina (1), Dukla Prague (1) and Inter Milan (1) during Jock Stein’s team’s histroric 1966/67 season.
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OUR SECOND CQN PODCAST this week, featuring interviews with ex-Celts Alan Stubbs and Chris Sutton, previewing the big games this week against Bayern Munich and Hibs at Hampden on Saturday.
Stubbs gives an insight into Liam Henderson as a player and talks about where his career should go from here.
Speaking on behalf of BT Sport, Alan Stubbs also spoke about his regret at leaving Hibs, and looks ahead to the League Cup semi-final between two of his former clubs.
