CELTIC’S European adventures over the past three years have not been for the squeamish.
It’s been an x-certificate sequence of horror results with the defence conceding a landslide FIFTY-SEVEN goals in 26 games in this ultra competitive arena.
Even someone lumbered with a single digit IQ can work out that is the loss of over two goals per game.
The Hoops have stepped aboard Europe’s Big Dipper and found the experience more excruciating than enthralling, more agonising than enjoyable.
Certainly, for anyone of a Celtic persuasion, the alarming and repeated disintegration of the defence on these torturous occasions has not been easy on the eye.
EURO WOE…Ange Postecoglou holds his head in frustration.
At the beginning of the three-year siege, former gaffer Ange Postecoglou famously stated he didn’t “pop any champagne corks for a clean sheet”.
It was evident from the earliest days of his introduction to Paradise, the Greek/Australian bought into the club’s DNA for attractive, attacking, entertaining football.
Alas, the back door was left open far too often for anyone’s liking and a bewildering 42 goals were lost with only three shut-outs – all at home – during Ange’s two-year European odyssey before he took flight for Spurs in May last year.
Over that rocky 20-game period, the team lost 11 times, claimed six victories and drew three. The Celtic fans cheered 30 goals when the defence was not buckling under counterattacks from switched-on and ruthless opponents.
In the midst of the groans, the under-pressure back lot conceded four without reply to Jeremie Frimpong’s Bayer Leverkusen under the lights in the east end of Glasgow and it was a similar tale of woe the following year when Real Madrid visited.
The European champions, after surviving a bit of a battering for an hour, went upfield and stuck three past Joe Hart and then the Hoops toppled 5-1 in the return, not helped by the fact the hosts were awarded two dodgy penalty-kicks early in the confrontation.
EURO WOE…Brendan Rodgers ponders his next move.
Brendan Rodgers took his Celtic players back to the Spanish capital last season and, once again, the Scots were on the receiving end of a pulverising.
This time it was 6-0, but, to be fair, the visitors were forced to play for over an hour in a hostile environment with only 10 men after the nonsensical VAR-assisted red card for Daizen Maeda, a crucial out-ball for the team on these demanding away days in the elite competition.
Ange witnessed 42 goals fly into the Celtic net over a two-year period, Brendan winced as 15 flashed into the rigging last season.
Now we are preparing to embark upon another European expedition with the visit of Slovan Bratislava to Parkhead tomorrow.
As we get ready for another sortie into the shark-infested waters of the Champions League, the red flags are already in evidence and the advice is straightforward.
If we want to end the painful procession: SHUT IT, CELTIC!
