DUNDEE UTD 2 CELTIC 1
RAGING fans turned on Wilfried Nancy as Celtic lost for a fourth consecutive game at Tannadice tonight.
It’s the first time the Hoops have lost four in a row in FORTY-SEVEN YEARS, but the Frenchman has now experienced the horror sequence in just a fortnight.
Following defeats against Hearts, AS Roma and St Mirren, Nancy desperately needed to turn the corner in this one, but, despite leading at the interval, his team managed to concede two quickfire second-half goals to condemn the champions to another unacceptable reverse.
The less-than-polite chants reverberated around the stadium as Nancy stood transfixed on the touchline while he continued to live out his personal nightmare.
BEWILDERED AND BEATEN…Wilfried Nancy at Tannadice as defeat No.4 stares him in the face.
And yet it could – and should – have been so different.
It took a flash of brilliance from Daizen Maeda to capitalise on the Hoops’ superiority, but the game could have been out of sight by the interval if Johnny Kenny had not been utterly wasteful in front of goal.
The young Irishman passed up three excellent opportunities and one that defied belief when he mishit from only four yards out to send the ball spiralling wide of the left-hand upright.
Yang Hyun-jun also had the opportunity for an early goal, but he was slow to make an appearance at the back post after Maeda had been sent clear on the left by a searching through pass from Luke McCowan.
The fleet-footed Japanese raider, who was terrorising the United right side, whipped over an inviting low ball and the South Korean hadn’t kept up to speed with the movement of his team-mate and arrived late to prod the ball well wide.
In the sixth minute, Kenny snatched at a ball inside from Maeda and wastefully sent an effort high off target.
A minute later, the Republic of Ireland international was clean through inside the box with just the keeper to beat, but hammered the ball against him.
THE PERFECT START…Daizen Maeda whips a low drive wide of keeper Dave Richards.
The breakthrough strike arrived in the 13th minute and it was Celtic’s just reward for all their early pressure.
Kenny switched the ball from midfield into the tracks of Meada and he turned on the afterburners to leave an opponent in his slipstream. He checked to go inside, swept back to his left and Dave Richards had no chance as the winger’s well-drilled drive zipped past him at his left hand.
Only moment later, Kenny was presented with yet another great chance, but dithered on the ball and was eventually crowded out.
The visitors were in control for most of the opening period, but there was some careless distribution from Kasper Schmeichel, emerging as a worrying feature in recent games, which surrendered possession to grateful opponents.
In the 34th minute, Kenny completed an unwanted quartet of dreadful misses when he was left with a simple tap-in after some superb work by Maeda yet again.
The frontman looked as though he must score, but managed to put the ball past the post for a bewildering miss.
These misses were always going to come back on Celtic. And so it proved when the hosts netted twice in four minutes and once again the Parkhead men didn’t have the quality to come back from a deficit.
WHAT A MISS…Johnny Kenny is the culprit as he fails to tap in a low cross.
United equalised in the 58th minute when a right-wing cross from Will Ferry carried all the way over to the opposite wing.
The ball wasn’t cleared by hesitant Hoops defenders and it was worked to Krisztian Keresztes who whipped a low drive past Schmeichel low to his left.
And it didn’t get any better when some more woeful defending allowed Zac Sapsford turned the game on its head.
It looked a genuine offside call for the Hoops when Max Watters raced onto a pass, but the flag stayed down and Schmeichel was forced to make a save at the United player’s feet at the expense of a left-wing corner-kick.
Once again, the visitors didn’t take charge of the situation, the ball fell to Sapsford and Kenny was slow to see the danger and try to block the shot.
Schmeichel had no chance as the ball hurtled over his left shoulder into the net.
In the 65th minute, Nancy made a triple substitution as he threw on Shin Yamada, James Forrest and Arne Engels for the underperforming Kenny, Hatate and Bernardo and 10 minutes later Liam Scales replaced Kieran Tierney.
“PLEASE PUT THE ROUND THING IN THE BACK OF THEIR NET”…Wilfried Nancy has a word with Daizen Maeda at Tannadice.
Celtic huffed and puffed without too much imagination, but only an extraordinary miss from Maeda prevented them from equalising in the 88th minute.
Forrest sent over an inviting cross from the right and the pacy attacker was just two yards out, smack in front of goal, but somehow contrived to thump his header off the keeper’s right-hand post.
It looked an impossibility not to knock the ball into the net, but Maeda managed the feat and that just about summed up Celtic’s night of torture on Tayside.
Benjamin Nygren came on for Yang in the 86th minute, but by then it already looked to be game over for a toiling side who are still six points adrift of Hearts with just one game in hand.
TEAM: Schmeichel; Ralston, Trusty, Tierney (sub: Scales 75); McCowan, Bernardo (sub: Engels 65), McGregor, Hatate (sub: Forrest 65) Maeda, Kenny (sub: Yamada 65), Yang (sub: Nygren 86).
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