They Embarrassed The Hoops
Morning, all.
Well, that was a bloody disaster last night. I wasn’t alone in thinking that the tie was far from over, even though we had a three goal advantage going into the second leg. I wasn’t alone either in thinking that if LASK can score three to wipe out our lead, they can score four just as easily. What I didn’t expect was for us to be four goals clear with less than an hour of the tie to play…
And ship five!
We knew this was a decent side who played very much on the front foot. We knew too that we needed our wingers to perform and take the heat from the defence and midfield. Nope, none of them did. We needed the middle of the pitch to be a battleground, and we barely won a skirmish. We needed to protect the defence, protect the ball, avoid giving them an opportunity. Instead, it was “After you, Claude” all bloody night.
In truth, this was a performance that’s been threatening in every game so far-even though we’ve won them all up till last night. LASK were cutting us open at will, just as they did last week. But our domestic opponents had been doing that to us earlier this month too, and we all saw it.
And yet, and yet…it could all have been so different. We started well enough, coping with the initial onslaught of the home side. We even went ahead on the night (giving us that four goal cushion) when CalMac hit one from the edge of the area. It was deflected past the despairing goalie, and even the most pessimistic of Celtic fans must have been humming Zadok The Priest. Aye, that was until Nygren took a turn at the wrong end.
Four goals and four assists so far, and last night was his best assist of all. I’ve no idea what he thought he was doing, but I do know that he passed it straight to the LASK attacker with only the goalie to beat. How we survived till half time having only lost one goal, I do not know. We barely had a shot at goal after our opener, barely strung two passes together, and if I’m honest? If I didn’t have an article to write, I’d have turned the telly off two minutes after half time.
That was all it took for them to go ahead on the night, amd it only took another ten minutes to get their third. Our chances of holding out for the remaining thirty-odd minutes were slim, as were our chances of actually scoring one and knocking the wind from their sails. Of course, they got their equaliser in the dying moments, just as we were beginning to harbour some hope again. They scored the clincher in extra time, but it was just a formality. We had collapsed like a house of cards, as shambolic and disgraceful a performance as I’ve seen in some time.
We deserved eff all, we got eff all. Apart from a damned good thrashing, which is what happens when you are completely outplayed and outfought. We can say goodbye to most of the rumoured signings too. Smashing…
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Above article by BMCUWP
FAN
Most of our cash pile is beyond use for footballing purposes, thanks to the new financial regulations. They actively encourage player churn to recycle money time and again.
Given the sick shit they’ve written about Brendan to try and take the focus from king rat, expect everyone, bar him, to feel the effect of their scatter gun.
No one is blameless last night but we all know how we got here again! With the team needing a boost from the bench last night, we turned to see Scales, McCowan, Ralston and Murray, who should all be playing for Dundee or Kilmarnock, not Celtic.
A serious football club would make sure this was the last time we tried to penny-pinch our way through. We are NOT a serious football club, we are just a money making vehicle for a mega-rich RAT!
Watch the lackeys spend weeks blaming anyone but Desmond ..all will be fair game.
Crying out for a better midfield since last year, simple as that. LASK are a good team and well deserved that win last night (and probably last wed also).IF any half decent team can waltz up to our 18 yard line pretty much any time they pushed forward, you are going to lose many goals.
Even if we had got through by some pure luck, We would be on to a doing game after game in big cup with this team. We, hopefully, are EL level but im not too sure of even that. Will it stop me from supporting Celtic? no chance! but i live in hope that we can compete in EL, with a couple of defensive mids coming in.
ps, i would have played 3 CH, and 5 midfielders last night and frustrated the life out of lask, but that is just my opinion.
Fan
Sitting on piles of cash is beyond stupid, but it points to the Boards fiscal policy being successfull in pst ten years , going from a £4m loss to £80m in reserves.
What it doesn’t do is explain why the recruitment strategy is so poor over that period – certainly for CL football. It doesn’t explain our inability to see off small teams with a fraction of our resources. It doesn’t explain our lack of fitness.
That said, our recruitment – thus far – this season has been decent and at 4-0 up you simply cannot blame the Board for this one . It’s on MON and especially those players being unable to see the job throuh…just as it was last season v the worst team we’ve ever faced at that qualification stage.
However, I believe last night to be a watershed moment for Celtic. The strange thing is, this is possibly the best thing to have happened as there is no hiding place for DD or MN.
They almost got away with it. Almost.
MURSHEEN
Good thinking. Except we don’t have five midfielders of sufficient quality.
Just when we thought we might be making progress we realise what we’ve been watching domestically is SPFL shit football that is heading down the toilet. We’ve ridden our luck against mediocre teams and may well stumble to another pointless League title. Or improve our world record treble haul!
A hollow “we’ve got more than you” shout out to the Huns.
Pointless because domestic dominance is the height of our ambition, not the springboard to success beyond this useless, limited backwater.
Tonight might see no teams in Europe apart from us.
Absolutely pathetic.
ps I’m also in the grip of a moral dilemma- wanting the Huns to qualify to at least share the awful Thursday Sunday burden which will hopefully hamper them.
BMCUWP
I get that but surely we can and should have used some money to bolster clear weaknesses in team.
To expect us to exit every transfer window with profit is just greed?
San Luis @ 10:20
We seemed to have watershed moments every year, why should this one be any different?
Almaty fiasco last year was another watershed moment but did this board go out and support BR? Can’t see them seeing this as another watershed moment and backing a 74 year old manager who, I’m afraid, who’s best footballing years are behind him.
This board’s next plan of action I guess, will be to see if they can still off load Nygren for a tidy profit.
Ex Machina
Aye, that is a moral dilemma for sure. A bit like mine last night-given what I’d said about not being confident that we can stop them scoring four if we get one, should I go for the correct score?
Well, I can never back against my team. I find it difficult enough to bet us to win! So I didn’t even get as far as checking the price. Just as well-I’m off to the pub shortly to take my kicking, but at least I won’t choke on beer bought by betting against us.
Small consolation, but I’ll take any kind of feelgood factor right now!
2026 and we are still trying to get away with paying our players in hundreds of pounds ..not thousands or 10s of thousands, HUNDREDS!
I wonder how many champions league defenders will be on less than a thousand pounds a week, eh?
Anyone want to calculate what king rat has cost us with that penny-pinching? A proper defensive midfielder would have insured we could compete. Without that our midfield is 3 empty jerseys when we don’t have the ball.
Martin would need to explain to me why we chose to give them so much space to operate on the wings last night, or why we consistently chose to aimlessly blooter the ball upfield all night, just inviting constant pressure.
Was like watching any average British team from the kick and rush 70s!!
Any team who attacks us,are camped on our 18 yard line ,as we have a lightweight midfield who haven’t got a tackle in them,the game management and the substitutions were frightening from experienced coaches and players
BAD
The aimless blootert were to our wide men or Høgh. Yang at least ran a few yards before losing possession, but Duran lost every time with his second touch. As for Høgh, he led the line and won the ball often enough, but he couldn’t bring the other players with him. Suffice to say that, on top of everything else, it was a struggle to find three names for JOBO!
Still, I think we should all make the effort. My three all performed poorly by their own standards, but probably better than the rest.
BADABING
“we have a lightweight midfield who haven’t got a tackle in them”
And how long now have we been saying that? As an example (via my sister this morning) when we lost 5-1 to the huns in MON’s first season, he told the board-
Get me Neil Lennon, and that won’t happen again.
I reckon we haven’t had a proper defensive mid since, someone that wins the ball every time and passes it to his own player. We’ve made do by shoehorning the likes of Ledley, Wanyama, Broonie and CalMac into positions that are alien to them. And we act surprised every time they fail at that.
Bobby,
Since I managed to see the full game for once, I will contribute to Jobo’s top three, struggling as I may.
Yang
Scales
Calmac ( only for his first half performance)
Thats how much a struggle it is to pick from that performance
Bmcuw
Sad but true.
As we become an anachronism from a bygone era.
In years to come we’ll dominate ( maybe) the Faroes clubs and other minnows Etc in the Conference League telling them we won the big cup – once.
In front of 20,000 diehards in a crumbling stadium.
What a legacy from the Macroom man.
EXMACHINA
Fuxake, I definitely need a drink now!
Bobby,
I won’t see a single champions league game again this year, I just have no interest in watching the same 8 teams compete for the trophy annually
On our midfield.
It is an absolute scandal what the penny-pinching has left us trying to compete with.
Although I’m actually boring myself now saying the same things over and over ..but ..when was the last time you saw any of our midfielders win a few tackles in a match? You simply can’t win against organised teams without physically competing for the ball.
Lads like McCowan and Yang aren’t just very average players, they are also cowardly on the park. On at least 2 occasions, after coming on, I watched McCowan shy away from putting his body on the line. I can accept players not being brilliant, but nothing annoys me more than not fighting for that jersey
Scared mentally and physically.
Sorry!
But the rot is well and truly established now.
Self harm on a scale that could be remedied but “ the owner” & son have decided otherwise.
Nothing changes til they leave the scene of the criminal neglect.
For Macroom replace with Gombeen
Callum first goal and Lask winning 4-1 @90mins – 700-1.
William Hill.
Bluegrass
I think it’s a watershed as most fans can see the flaws in this team. The same ones we saw v Dundee Utd , we saw last week at home and last night away to LASK. Indeed I mentioned on here last Wednesday, after they had 4 good attempts on our goal that we’d need 5 to get through the tie.
I was proven correct.
Now if I and others can see this, why can’t our Manager or Board?
The end of last season and the positive start to this one masked a simmering discontent, that if we qualified for CL would have been ignored. We’d have been fobbed off again.
However, you can’t hide from that. You cannot have a team 4-0 up against an average side and watch it commit the equivalent of soccer suicide and expect nothing to change. This is a tough one to take, probably the worst in our History. It simply cannot be ignored or treated as ” one of those things”.
Everyone at Celtic is culpable and something structural at the club needs to change. A few seasons of pain may be what’s required, but it’s time to take that medicine.
Anyone but Martin think Bernardo would’ve given us more than McCowan or Hatate 🤔🤔
Being kind I didn’t say McCowan and Hatate combined.
A game where we were bullied all over the pitch.even our CBs got rag dolled.players down looking at ref for fouls that weren’t.players getn out muscled in 1 to 1s.players lookin to come off.not a good mix at this level
San Luis,
I get what you’re saying but we’ve had watershed moments for too long. The only watershed moment I’ve seen this board take action on in recent times was the one they created last year, sacking Nancy.
Like I said earlier, this board’s most likely plan of action at this moment in time will be to recoup last nights lost revenue and try and flog Nygren ( if that’s even possible now).
The only watershed moment I see for now is the fans threatening to boycott the Europa games if there’s no the immediate signings that are required.
Lask were a decent team but probably a EL team and we will encounter more displays like this if we don’t take action.
I’m as passionate as the next man/woman but being European cannon fodder by average teams is becoming toxic and unbearable.
HH
We should have strengthened the defence but I don’t think the board will see it that way. Their reasoning will be that they spent some money in bringing in 4 players and we still lost so what was the point in spending in the first place.
We can now add Lask to the list of teams with much smaller income than us who have knocked us out of the champions league. I wonder how much money Lask have in the bank.
I think if we lose to the huns in the cup Martin will walk away to be replaced by Sean and a new cycle of downsizing will begin. We are in danger of seeing a rerun of last season.
How not to run a football club.
Thought their captain Sacha Horvath was a very good player.best player over the 2 legs.drove his team on
Auldbhoy67
August 26, 2026 8:17 am
IQ4 1.33
Sorry mate have to disagree thete. PSG were 4-0 up against Barca in 2017/18 after first leg and lost 6-1 on return resulting in 6-5 aggr loss. It happpens to the very best just not as regular.
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Hi Auldbhoy67
I missed out a word – ‘going’ in my original post. Here’s how it should have read:
“No other team in the Champions League has ever lost when going 4-0 up on aggregate during the second leg.”
Barca were 4-0 down, but scored 3 before Cavani replied. We are the only team in Champions League history to lead by 3 goals, increase our lead away from home, but STILL lose.
HH
INIQUITOUS IV😊
Here is an incredible stat. In our last 3 games against Dundee Utd and Lask twice we have faced a total of 71 shots.
The vast majority from around the edge of our box.
What the actual are our coaching team doing
How much money did the board actually lay out this year on players? I’m not remotely capable of researching the money in/ money out this season but I’m sure some soul in here could do it in 5 minutes. It would be interesting to know how much we actually splashed out 🤔
Drew67@12:25
Couldnt agree more. Smallest player on the park but had the heart of a lion. Wish we had that
Absolutely nothing will change until king rat finds another toy to play with and moves on.
I hope we make it abundantly clear he is not, and will never be, welcome at our club. All he has achieved is overseeing us becoming an a complete irrelevance on the continent
Anyone in this position, anyone who genuinely had the club’s best interest at heart, would give the fans what they want, real change.
Please get to fuck Mr Desmond!!
Answering my own question here. Just saw a clip of our transfers and a quick fag packet calculation, it looks like we’ve shipped out players for €42m and brought in players for €32m.
So not really spent a penny by the looks of things and still got €10m still to use up for a decent DM before dipping into the funds to boost that ailing defence 🤔
Bluegrass,
We are still in profit right now I’m sure..so as per we’re not really spending.
When was the last time we actually spent money without taking in more?
Fan @ 11.43 pm
That sums it up for me
Sorry BAD,
My fingers couldn’t work quick enough before someone replied 🤣
Still dreadful though.
Triple H, 12.28
Exactly where a decent no6 would make sure and place himself during open play.
San Luis
“In my opinion , on every recent occasion that we’ve been eliminated at qualifying round, the players available to us , ……………..compared to our rivals – bar none – is vastly superior.”
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Hi San Luis:
Respectfully totally disagree with this one part of your post, mate. We have holes in midfield and defence you can see from space. Even worse, we punt Engels and Bernardo from an already pathetically weak midfield squad.
We are thus a couple of injuries away from predictably ending up as a patchwork, makeshift shambles of grossly inadequate players. Unless radically fortified, it will be regularly slaughtered in the Europa. I didn’t see any LASK player or sub weaker than Yang, Tounekti, Trusty, Hatate, or worst of all, McCowan. I could add Nygren and CCV to that list.
Our coaching staff, faced with this hopeless bunch of weaklings, were ridiculously naive in setting up the team with a 4-3-3 facing their clearly stronger, faster, fitter, more athletic 5 in the middle. LASK could easily have scored 10 or 11 goals over the 2 ties.
We are a joke of an organization. I still remember the hurt of the MTK debacle in 1964, 62 years ago! This embarrassing fiasco will live longer in young fans memories, as I won’t be around for another 62.🤣
HH
INIQUITOUS IV😊
Has the manager done the honourable thing and resigned yet.
Not only would our CB choices have been the weakest in the CL, they may well be the worst available to any manager in the Europa league.
Add in the fact we don’t seem to have a fullback that can last 90mins! Which is a fucking scandal
Taking it down to basics our best defence apparently consists of sick note, carthorse sicknote, pussy and can only run for an hour.
The invisible CDM is probably the most reliable of the five.
IIV
Good points as ever. But I’m unable to agree with you. LASK are a team of average players who are coached to a good level of fitness and play to a system that suits them. They’re the exact opposite of us .
We do however have way more money and have spent it on players they could only dream about. WC players, players with CL pedigree, players with multiple international caps.
We never brought on our £9m star winger, whilst they brought on some guy from StMirren.
What we don’t have is a coherent system, style of play, or a level of fitness that even the most basic of teams have. We constantly struggle against wee well organised Scottish teams, let alone ones of similar stature to Hibs in Europe.
Everyhing needs to change. Manager, players ,Board. . The lot.
Calmac is a great captain and I’m not suggesting he should be dropped but he is hogging a position he is not good enough for and acting as a blocker to us getting a proper defensive midfielder in there we have been crying out for for years
St tams
August 26, 2026 1:00 pm
‘Has the manager done the honourable thing and resigned yet.’
###
I wouldn’t expect him to, and I wouldn’t want him to.
He’s the best we’re going to get, given who controls the club.
He’ll most likely retire at the end of the season and I’ve no confidence that his replacement will be an improvement.
Why would any manager worth their salt want to be there?
Just scrolling through Virgin’s TV Guide and on Channel 182 at 3pm is:
Europe’s Great Wilderness
Series 1, All Episodes: CELTIC FC 😁
I think the solutions are not that drastic. Not saying they will happen, but easy enough.
With only a bare minimum of effort, For the last decade, Celtic were guaranteed a title and entry to the CL. So most coaches would want that. Even as a stepping stone.
before people burn the whole thing down, try two simple steps.
Get a manager with a system that sort of suits the players presesntly in place. Right now, MON doesnt appear to be anything other trhan a scout and motivator. Modern game has passed him by.
But have to do it before Celti’s soon before Celtic’s standing drops completely out of sight.
Drop Calmac, and replace him with someone like Gineitis who can tackle and start the attack (would qualify for CL knock out stages), or even the Canuck (would stroll the league at least). Actually, two mids are needed as all the rest are really attackers (except maybe Baur, but i need to see more of him).
I get Calmac wants to play, but a real captain would put the needs of the team first and say ‘i can play as the number 8, but i am holding the team back by playing as a no 6. Sign a number 6’
but if you limit your coaching options to NI only, gertting a real coach is unlikely to happen.
and given i believe Calmac is already earmarked to be manager in the not too distant future, they are unlikely to drop him.
Solve those two issues and you are 70% of the way to solving the onfiled problems
CALTONTONGUES
And your tv supplier is the nearest The Calton will get to a virgin.
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS,
True, very true 😁
MIKEINTORONTO
Tommy Boyd was captain when MON first arrived. He recognised that he was no longer a first pick. Lambert was team captain, but Boyd remained club captain, and ready to play when required.
CalMac is at that stage now. Sad, but true.
Has anyone asked why a guy we paid £9m for sat on the bench while a collection of empty jerseys got on before him. That should be enough to remove the whole coaching team on its own. Mind you, we might get Nancy 2. At least they didn’t totally troll him by putting wishy washy on.
3 qualifiers for CL for the foreseeable future
https://www.andymuirhead.com/p/celtics-champions-league-exit-once