SHELL-SHOCKED Chris Cadden admitted Celtic “punished” Motherwell in the 2-0 Scottish Cup Final loss at Hampden yesterday.
The Fir Park winger was hopeful of upsetting the odds after seeing his side gain two draw against the champions during the season.
However, the Hoops started in whirlwind fashion and were a goal up in 11 minutes through a sublime half-volley from Callum McGregor and Oliver Ntcham swept a low drive beyond Trevor Carson to double the team’s advantage in the 25th minute.
Cadden admitted: “It didn’t go the way we imagined. It was a tough result. I thought we lost the game in the first-half. That gave us too much to do after the interval.
“We showed them too much respect in the opening half. Obviously, they’re a good team, they’ve spent a lot of money and they deserve some amount of respect.
“But that’s not really our game – showing people respect. We’ve got to get into people’s faces and we didn’t do that first half. We did it more second-half, but by then it was too late.”
Stephen Robinson’s outfit never recovered from the double hammer blow inside the opening half-hour and Cadden added: “Maybe if you’re playing somebody else in the league those sort of chances don’t go in.
“But Celtic punish you. If you give them a yard they’ll put it in the net, which they did.
”They won the league pretty comfortably so they’ve been good all season. But I don’t think them going for the double-treble was a big factor. They didn’t want it more than us.
“You can see our boys, we’re gutted for the fans, for everybody. We wanted it as well, just as much as them.”
