ASTON VILLA 4 CELTIC 2
BLUNDERING Celtic flopped in a maze of mistakes at Villa Park this evening.
Thankfully, the result meant nothing as far as reaching the Champions League play-offs is concerned, but this was a display laced with errors and howlers from Brendan Rodgers’ team.
This was every bit as awful as the seven-goal drubbing in Dortmund and proved conclusively the worth of Cameron Carter-Vickers to this defence.
Liam Scales struggled to the extent he was withdrawn to make way for Dane Murray who was on loan at Queen’s Park at the start of the season.
Before the night was out the youngster, making his first appearance of the campaign, had presented Villa with their fourth goal to bring the curtain down on an x-certificate performance from the Parkhead men.
And it got to the stage Daniel Cummings was also thrown on for his first-team debut as Celtic nosedived to defeat.
This was not easy on the eye and the importance of bringing in a quality frontman for Kyogo Furuhashi was highlighted on a night to forget.
It was all-square at the interval after a breathless opening period that saw the host go two goals ahead in quickfire fashion that provoked a similar response from Rodgers’ men in an encounter where the tempo rarely dropped below 100mph.
The visitors were on the backfoot after losing two goals in five minutes as the fans of both teams could barely believe what they were witnessing.
In just three minutes, Jacob Ramsey got clear to whip in a low left-wing cross and Morgan Rogers first-timed an effort past the helpless Kasper Schmeichel.
Before the Celtic players had a chance to clear their heads and regroup, they conceded again two minutes later.
Schmeichel was loose with a pass out of defence that was snapped up by the opposition in the middle of the park. It was worked forward where Rogers was presented with a shooting chance on the edge of the box.
He didn’t hesitate as he fired it goal wards, the ball took a nick off Scales’ toe and that was enough to send it looping into the keeper’s top left-hand corner of the net.
At that stage, Rodgers’ side were all over the place and it looked as though an embarrassing result was in the offing.
However, two minutes after the second goal, Nicolas Kuhn was presented with an excellent chance to pull one back, but the German winger contrived to belt the ball well wide of Emilio Martinez’s right-hand post.
That was followed by another appalling miss by Reo Hatate after he seized upon a sloppy passback from Luca Digne.
The Japanese midfielder only had Martinez to beat with the goal gaping, but he miserably struck a shot straight into the grateful arms of the Argentinian international netminder.
It was a truly wasteful finish from the playmaker and Villa were allowed to breathe a sigh of relief.
In the 25th minute, it was the visitors’ turn to escape when a low drive from Ramsey flicked up off Schmeichel’s right-hand upright and was snatched by the thankful keeper.
On the half-hour mark, John McGinn came on for the limping Matty Cash and only two minutes later Alistair Johnston managed to clear an Ollie Watkins shot off the line.
However, the fightback started with a brilliant goal in the 36th minute when Yang Hyun-jun and Hatate combined to send Greg Taylor racing clear on the left and his cross was acrobatically hooked past Martinez by Adam Idah.
Exactly two minutes and 25 seconds later, the Republic of Ireland international striker was celebrating again when he rammed in the equaliser.
It was a wonderfully-constructed set-up from Celtic on the right with Kuhn and Callum McGregor involved before a neat flick from Arne Engels found Hatate clear in the box.
He whipped it low to the back post and Idah was there to thunder the ball into the roof of the net.
Unfortunately, on the hour mark, Villa were gifted a third goal when both Scales and Engels lost challenges and the ball was swept to Watkins who walloped it past the exposed Schmeichel.
In the 65th minute, ropey French referee Clement Turpin awarded the hosts a penalty-kick after buying Watkins’ theatrical dive after a Trusty challenge.
Alarmingly, VAR agreed with the onfield decision, but justice was done when Watkins skied the ball into the stand.
Hatate came within inches of the equaliser in the 73rd minute when he accepted a pass from Kuhn and left Martinez stranded with a curling effort from outside the box.
Alas, the ball carried wide of the far upright and moments later Rodgers introduced Paulo Bernardo and Luis Palma for the tiring Engels and the ineffective Yang.
Seven minutes later, Cummings came on for Idah in a move that emphasised how bereft of strikers Celtic are at the moment.
With Scales continuing to struggle, Murray replaced him in the 83rd minute along with Luke McCowan for Hatate.
Celtic offered little by way of a genuine threat before Murray gifted possession to Watkins who rolled the ball in front of Rogers to complete his hat-trick.
It was a fitting end to a woeful evening for Celtic.
TEAM: Schmeichel; Johnston, Trusty, Scales (sub: Murray 83), Taylor; Engels (sub: Bernardo 73), McGregor, Hatate (sub: McCowan 83); Kuhn, Idah (sub: Cummings 80), Yang (sub: Palma 73).
