Credit to the manager. Brendan Rodgers’ public comments after the Disaster in Dortmund, that he would be happier to lose 7-1 than what he saw was the alternative, to play defensively and lose 3 or 4-0, turned out to be a cunning ruse.
Just as in Dortmund, Celtic’s gameplan was evident from the opening two minutes, but whereas the last time we pushed into the Borussia box, last night we dropped deep, allowing Atalanta the ball and denying them space to exploit.
Adam Idah spent much of the game 30 yards from his own goal. He and Reo Hatate were the first line of resistance, protecting two tightly packed banks of four. When Atalanta tried to pass through, they scarcely saw a sniff of daylight all game. Instead, they were forced wide, from where they threw in an endless series of crosses.
Pasalic came closest. He got a run on Liam Scales and saw his header hit the crossbar and he put the rebound over. That aside, every opportunity Atalanta had was no more than a half chance, due to the presence of at least one Celtic defender, and often two.
Scales and his leftie central defensive partner, Auston Trusty, were imperious. We have seen this before from Scales, who has his second outstanding Champions League game of the season (think about that), but Trusty came of age in Bergamo. This defensive game suited him. Every ball into the box was challenged.
Alex Valle put in a shift Greg Taylor would have been proud of, while Alistair Johnston made at least two crucial blocks.
With 15 minutes to go, I am sure all of the Celtic support thought, “This lot could play all day and not score”. I chastised my dad for putting words to this thought, but in truth, Celtic were very comfortable throughout the second half.
Atalanta had two free kicks and a corner in added time to force the issue. Had they scored, we would have no complaints, but nor would we have been any less impressed by Celtic. This was a mature European performance. Credit to the players, as well.
150 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
It’s great that the BBC have Champions League highlights back on council TV.
I thoroughly enjoyed the 2.36 they showed of our game. 👀
Mourinho always playing the panto villain, all about him,he’s yesterday’s man,pathetic
Majestic Hartson
That is good odds but this is even better.
Aberdeen to beat the monkeys next Wednesday night 14/5 with McBookie.
From Jobo’s POTY comp
*SENTINEL CELTS PLAYER OF THE YEAR 2024-25*
*RESULTS FROM GAME #13 ATALANTA 0 CELTIC 0*
Good evening, friends.
Before moving on to the actual football I would like to start with an apology. When I wade through the emails, whenever I see that someone has picked the same 3 as me I then try to send a personal response, commenting on my reasons and thanking them for being just as clever as me! But after this particular game there were simply far too many (at the last count 38!) so I’m afraid there were no individual, personal replies this time around. Apologies again. So, now on to the more important things…
For the first time this season, Celtic fail to score a goal and yet still came away with arguably the best result of the season so far. Hands up – pre-match I was among the doom-mongers suggesting that I would not be too disappointed with a 3 goal defeat. And even as late as the 92nd minute I still wasn’t convinced we were going to come away with a point. But we did and hopefully this turns out to be a very significant point in the 2024-25 campaign.
We kicked off in Bergamo and managed to last a full 13 seconds before giving away possession with a very slack pass from Hatate allowing Atalanta to bear in on goal. Fortunately, it came to nothing.
In 7 minutes Johnson picked up the only yellow card of the night and we knew he had to be careful for the remaining 83+. He was!
2 minutes later and I was out of my seat as Kuhn broke on the right, far quicker than his marker but our reward was only a corner.
During the remainder of the first half it was almost constant pressure from Atalanta who passed up several decent chances as well as Pasalic having a header hit the bar. But our defence was resolute, and we got to half time goalless and with a feeling that perhaps a corner had been turned.
The second half started as the first had ended with most of the action heading towards Kasper’s goal. But gradually I started to sense that Atalanta were getting more frustrated and running out of ideas. Both teams made their 5 changes and if anything, Celtic came more into the game in an attacking sense during the last 20 minutes. The introduction of Bernardo certainly saw our possession improve and we had a couple of half chances to take all 3 points, but it wasn’t to be.
We reached the 90 minute mark out on our feet but with that vital clean sheet. But to make things exciting we then contrived to give up 2 edge of the box free kicks and a last gasp corner. Fortunately, it wasn’t our all too familiar last gasp heartache but rather a huge single point away from home. With 2 home games to come during November we can realistically hope to be sitting on 7 points with the dream of having 8 or 10!
We have now played 13 games this season, winning 10, drawing 2 and losing 1. We have scored 38 and conceded 14 (domestically it’s 32-6 and in Europe it’s 6-8).
The great performance yesterday has thankfully been reflected in the voting numbers and so it’s a huge thank you to the 88 who contributed this time, the highest turnout so far this season.
The total votes cast for each player are as follows, with my own nominations asterisked.
Schmeichel*: 59
Johnston: 11
Trusty*: 82
Scales*: 72
Valle: 13
McGregor: 8
Engels: 0
Hatate: 8
Kuhn: 10
Idah: 1
Maeda: 0
Kyogo: 0
Bernardo: 0
McCowan: 0
Palma: 0
Forrest: 0
And so, the players receiving POINTS for the game against Atalanta are –
Trusty – 5 points
Scales – 4 points
Schmeichel – 3 points
Valle – 2 points
Johnston – 1 point
And the overall positions after 13 games played are –
26 points – Scales
23 points – Kuhn
20 points – McGregor
19 points – Hatate and Maeda
15 points – Bernardo
12 points – Engels
9 points – Valle
8 points – Kyogo and Schmeichel
7 points – Johnston A, O’Riley and Valle
5 points – Trusty and Taylor
4 points – Carter-Vickers and McCowan
3 points – Forrest and Idah
1 point – Yang
0 points – Holm, Johnston M., Nawrocki, Palma, Ralston, Turley, Welsh
Back to League business this weekend with a Sunday 3pm kick off trip to Motherwell. I hope that there’s enough of a performance to keep the voting numbers high 😉
Hail Hail!
Good Morning Fholk – Grand Day To Be A Tim…
Great stuff by JoBo again…
Liam Scales topping the POTY table, who’d a thunk that.
Good to see Paul67, giving BR&Co some credit for Wednesday’s excellent performance and wrong footing the wylie aul’ Gasperini.
Of course the BR distractors may be keeping a low profile but they are still brandishing their sticks.
Some telling us Liam Scales phenomenonal low block performance coming from his time being coached by Aberdeen and the ROI…
Not to be outdone, the stick hitter general…
“During Rodgers’ reign, the team had conceded 86 goals in 50 outings. That’s a fairly damning statistic. Even Lincoln Red Imps, champions of Gibraltar, had managed to penetrate the porous rearguard.
You need Dr Who’s tardis to travel back in time to the last occasion at this level the net had failed to rustle behind the Celtic keeper. That was on September 17 2017 when Rodgers’ men enjoyed a 3-0 victory over Anderlecht.
https://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/alexs-angle-celtics-priceless-commodity/
Well, it was a rather confusing couple of paragraphs, not unusual, but intriguing, the SMSM had us not rustling our away net in Europe since 2017?
So, should have better things to do but unpacked it a bit…
Now, the fifty games seems to refer to Brendan Rodgers total European games with Celtic, yet the away clean sheet made little sense, BR Mk1 left in the 2018-19 season and we had away clean sheets in the UCL qualifiers and Europa group stage.
So the fifty games and goals conceded, is the total of European games, while the clean sheets refer only to UCL group stage away games only.
That was six games in BR’s first tenure and five games so far in his second tenure.
So in his first tenure BR has one clean sheet out of six and in his second tenure one clean sheet out of five away games.
So let’s play the Brendan naysayers game of bringing GS’s and Lenny’s record into it…
Well I can’t find a single UCL group stage away clean sheet for either of them.
In fact, outwith Anderlecht, I can’t find Celtic ever having an away cleansheet in a UCL group stage, that’s since the UCL inception.
So my first impressions seem correct, it was just a bizarre stick to hit BR with, as he is the only one who managed an away clean sheet in the UCL group stage in Celtic history and now he’s done it twice.
As things stand, Celtic are twentieth in the UCL table…
2024-25 Pld 3. W 1. L 1. D 1. F 6. A 8
It will be interesting to see how we progress in Europe this season now the CEO and Manager are targeting it as one of our priorities.
Yet we will have to expect many more record breaking performances before the placemen put away their Brendan sticks.
LazyJournalismNotCelticNewsCSC
Hail Hail
Good morning all from adark but mild 11 degree Garngad.
They are world beaters again after beating a shoite europa league team. Goldfish supporters, around they go, we are shite, we won we are brilliant, we get beat we are shite just like a wee goldfish swimming around its bowl thinking awe this is boring and goes for a lap then wow this place is brilliant.
Anyway I hope CCV is fit again.
We move onto Sunday and a 3pm away game wtf.
How to ruin a sport.
D. :)
It’s better than a 12:00 KO, and being on Sunday this week gives us an extra days recovery after Wednesday’s game.
chairbhoy
Excellent analysis. Celtic’s detractors will always look for some obtuse angle, and the one you highlight was readily available on the SMSM, especially via the BBC. Most of us share the frustration of failing in Europe, especially say in the latter Lennon years when we had put ourselves in good positions to qualify for the CL by achieving good away results. And, as I think Burnley78 has pointed out we have won a fair share of CL and EL qualifiers over the years including a 2-0 at home against AZ Alkmaar under Ange Postecoglou whose Spurs side defeated 1-0 last night with the opposition finishing with ten men. There was one stat, during Strachan’s time when we went 30 away games or so in the SPL without achieving a clean sheet, a record ending when Gordon received a Special Dispensation from Pete Lawwell to play Bobo Balde up at Tannadice. Not a great stat of course but I guess we won the vast majority of those games.
Revived Rangers earn biggest European win in 17 years
The above a headline from BBC Scotland. Whatever the reason they and all the other so called SMSM cannot resist some ‘historical’ reference when talking about Sevco. As the events of the other days day prove categorically the football Club founded in 1872 and incorporated in 1899 (the Club is the Company, the Company is the Club) is no more.
Pathetic drivel yet again from the BBC, I’m so glad I don’t have to pay a licence fee for such nonsense
According to Romanian media, that team last night was full of their reserves, if I paid to come to Glasgow I would raging….
“Whatever the reason they and all the other so called SMSM cannot resist some ‘historical’ reference when talking about Sevco”.
When the future looks bleak, glorify the past 👍
Huns v FCSB….I watched the whole 94 minutes…sadly. LOL
FCSB were shocking, hardly putting 2 or 3 passes together.
IF FCSB put out a ” Reserve Team” they should be hammered by UEFA.
Apparently, FCSB had about 1,000 fans at Ipox who had paid out good money to see their 1st Team…NOT 11 Stiffs.
The Huns did NOT need to be good. That Hun Chump Pundit Neil McCann has claimed that the FCSB Goal in the first Two minutes that was chalked off…. was the correct decision….WTF ?
Hun Goalie Butland made a complete mess of trying to dribble the ball out of the Huns Box, and then feigned injury when the FCSB Player took the ball off him……Cheatin Hun Bassas yet again.
HH.
Sport News (Romania)
“The Reds and Blues fielded a side made up largely of players usually on the bench at Ibrox, a decision that cost them dearly as they dropped to 13th. Basically, they left the area that ensures the qualification in the eighth. Disturbed by the attitude of the landowner, who mocked them repeatedly and even announced the first 11 three days before, the Scots took advantage.”
TNT Sports have labelled it a “European Masterclass” 🤣🤣🤣
The SMSM have either been told to spray the feel good dust or have taken the initiative themselves as they see the writing on the wall.
moravcik on 25th October 2024 7:25 am
It’s better than a 12:00 KO, and being on Sunday this week gives us an extra days recovery after Wednesday’s game.
…………
Just in case some don’t know…the Motherwell v Celtic game is LIVE on Sky Sports on Sunday…its after the Hibs v Hearts game which is also live on Sky.
HH.
FCSB were 10 times WORSE than Slovan Bratislavia.
HH.
https://www.celticfc.com/news/2024/october/25/the-great-tommy-callaghan-passes-away/
FCSB had a makeshift team as they are focusing on a derby at the weekend.
The team also appear to be picked by the “owner” not the manager.
Facts ignored by the MSM who glorify them as some kind of European cracks…..
Same as it ever was. C’mon the Buddies……
Hrvatski Jim on 25th October 2024 9:39 am
RIP Tommy, a true gentleman.
Chairbhoy
Superb post.
The ‘jilted lovers’ in the Celtic support took a helluva beating. SMSM will need to find new sticks with which to beat Tier One Rodgers.
They’ve been searching since the Brendan return set sail and some of them were quietly banned from Parkhead, still hurting from 2012.
The Leipzig game with the new format should be a great day.
RIP Tommy Callaghan
We belong.
European football at the top table gives us pride, reputation and profile. It refreshes the parts that domestic football cannot hope to match.
Well done Celtic, well done BR.
The big stick turns out to be a boomarang to those who would weild it.
HH.
Piss poor site management
R.I.P. Tid you graced Celtic park .
Lovely guy,met him at Hospitality a few times,always had a story for you,RIP Big Tid
The Blogger Formerly Known As GM on 25th October 2024 8:47 am
“Whatever the reason they and all the other so called SMSM cannot resist some ‘historical’ reference when talking about Sevco”.
When the future looks bleak, glorify the past 👍
_______________________________________________________________________
Yes I know, but it’s not even their past to glorify! It’s like me claiming I was the one who scored a hattrick in the 1957 League Cup final!
RIP Tommy Callaghan
Manchester United have not won a European game in over a year
And….hopefully while “Sir” Jim (tax dodger in exile) Rat Cliffe is involved, long may that continue
The contrast could not have been more stark in terms of quality on show Tuesday and Wednesday vs last night.
There is only 1 competition in Europe to be talking about and Celtic are in it.
“We only know that there is going to be a show and the Glasgow Celtic are there”.
The others are gathering co-eff benefits and a wee bit of cash. £34m v £12m v £6m in UEFA cash alone so far to Scotlands 3 tells its own story.
Despite all the excitement of Wednesday we have so much to do to qualify. The Scottish Co-efficient guy (a rangers supporter btw so it must be hard for the lad) and other opta stato guys suggest we have 30% chance of not getting through, 31% of 17-24 ranking, 26% of 9-16 and 13% of 1-8.
The reason our chances are strong is based on our having played 2 away games and a pot 1&2 team and emerged with 4 points. So statistically it looks good however…….
The reality is so many results went against us this week. Zagreb, Feyenoord, Lille, Milan all got results against higher seeds. There are also not enough draws.
Bayern, Athletico, Milan, PSV (given their future opponents) will all come good and finish above us, possibly also Leipzig but given their tough opponents maybe less certain. So it is not so easy. Incredibly when 9 points seemed it would be safe (on the models) it is maybe 10 plus good goal differential might be needed.
Zagreb winning was the biggest blow and our game there will be massive.
Personally I would take a draw in our next 3 matches and a win v Young Boys (who will likely be out by then) right now. Then a free hit v Villa reserves to try get a seeded last 16 place.
The reality for positions 1-8 is we would likely need a draw with Leipzig and then 4 wins for the next 4. The last being probably Villa reserves makes it not impossible but highly improbable.
The new format for the CL is fantastic in my view. Who would have thought it ? Credit to the administrators for once. All over Europe teams are working through their options and potential to qualify and attain higher seeding.
On to the day job at Motherwell. Hopefully the Sunday afternoon kick off can allow recovery time and avoid the hangover we often get post Europe.
Macowan Kyogo Greg and Palma to start for me !
So said to hear of big TID passing.
I was chatting with him only a few weeks ago. And he seemed in good form.
Like Taylor and Telfer and Vic Davidson and Scales and Caldwell and Hartley and many others he put in a real shift for Celtic but was never fully appreciated by the support.
Another one of those who played at my first ever Celtic game gone. Another fifer too.
RIP.
Rip Tommy Callaghan
You wore the hoops
HH
Sad news!
Rest in peace Tommy!
Prayers said for those who remain.
My memories of TC were him alternating between playing at left back and further forward. Sometimes maligned, he was one of those guys who every now and again could peak to a very high level. Never heard him called Tid before. Where did that come from?
Tommy was one of the unappreciated members of Stein’s teams. My memory is that he had a great start to his Celtic career introducing the Cally Shuffle in beating the old Rangers in the League Cup sections but he settled down to the role of ball carrier in the midfield. It was an unglamorous position and, as young callous teenagers, we did not appreciate why it was necessary or helpful.
Tommy became the team scapegoat for us- a role previously held by Charlie Gallagher and shared with Harry Hood, as being seen as “not good enough”. Thankfully, Jock knew more about football than we ever would and he stuck with Tommy.
I got a chance to meet him and apologise for my youthful callousness. The man’s reaction showed a great deal of modesty but, in truth, he did not need my apology. He knew what his team mates appreciated about him and, more importantly, he knew what he had achieved simply by earning a place in a world class Celtic squad. he needed no other affirmation. May he RIP.
new article posted.
RIP Tommy Callaghan, or, ‘Hen Broon’, as some around us in the Celtic end used to call him.
He was a true team player, unselfish and unglamorous, Jock knew what he was buying and appreciated what Tommy brought to the team, even if some in the crowd did not. He was no superstar as he himself would have admitted, but he must have had a wry smile in recent times when he sees the sort of money paid these days to those of equal stature to himself. HH