The inquest will be long, weary and
painful. Yet the reasons Celtic suffered a second successive Champions League
exit under Ronny Deila were not hard to find. On a night when they needed
discipline, calm and composure, Scotland's champions contrived to make a pig's
ear of it. Malmo not only had the mouth. They also had the trousers.
Over two games against a modest
team, Celtic's defending was dismal. Shipping three goals from corner kicks,
the zonal marking was wretched. In their past five games, Deila's side have now
lost nine goals, 28 in their past 18 European matches in all. The Achilles'
heel is clear, brutally exposed once more to the naked eye here.
Last year, after exiting UEFA's
premier competition to Slovenians Maribor, Deila urged people to judge him in
12 months. The verdict will inevitably be damning.
Celtic were architects of their own
demise, losing a desperately poor goal from a corner in 23 minutes. Another
when UEFA credited Dedryck Boyata with an own goal in 54 minutes then changed
their mind and gave it to substitute Felipe Carvalho. Once more, it came from a
corner kick
Part and parcel of these nights is
an inevitable poor decision. A goal disallowed by the Serbian officials before
half-time, when Nir Bitton’s effort was wrongly chalked off, will be picked
over long and weary. Yet over two bitter, feisty games, Malmo backed up big
words with deeds, Deila’s confidence that his team would win here utterly
misplaced.
At time up, the team in light blue
cavorted before a jubilant support. Celtic left the field to lick their wounds.
For Deila, the Parkhead board and the support base, testing, trying days of
discontent lie ahead.
From the moment of the second goal —
leaving the visitors needing two — Celtic were done, their right to call
themselves a Champions League club shredded.
A solidarity payment of £2.1million
and a place in the Europa League is a dismal consolation.
The European football’s second-tier
competition will bring around £8m — a substantial improvement on previous
years. The inevitable sale of Virgil van Dijk to Southampton for £11m in the
days before the window closes fills the financial void. But it will leave
another at the heart of a porous and alarmingly poor defence.
The disallowed goal was a dreadful
injustice for Celtic. A woeful piece of refereeing Deila’s side will complain
bitterly about for some time to come when, after 41 minutes, a Stuart Armstrong
corner resulted in Bitton forcing the ball into the net following a clear
handball by former Aberdeen defender Kari Arnason. The officials believed the ball
had struck the Israeli on the hand. It hadn’t.
It’s an incident which once again
calls into question the value of assistant referees behind goals. It was a
game-changer and no question. The pictures were clear. There was a touch of Joe
Jordan 1978 about both the circumstances and the decision.
It was a critical moment because
taken to its logical conclusion, Celtic would have been level and Malmo down to
10 men. Instead, the Swedes were given a free-kick. In every sense, this really
was their night. There and then, you sensed, it wouldn’t fall Celtic’s way.
It began to unravel in 23 minutes.
From a Yoshimar Yotun corner, Malmo’s talisman Markus Rosenberg — missing from
the first game — ghosted across a static zonal defence to nod an unchallenged
downward header into the net from six yards.
A 0-0 draw reminiscent of the result
in Baku was no longer possible. Celtic had to score. There were times in the
first half where that looked more likely than not. Defensively, Malmo were a
ropey bunch as well.
Yet the truth cannot be denied. Age
Hareide’s team, with Rosenberg and the transformed Jo Inge Berget, were the
more threatening side and created a raft of solid chances.
Celtic, inevitably, had one or two
of their own. Before the Malmo opener Griffiths — in a rich vein of scoring
form — outpaced the home defence to flash a shot into the side-netting.
The opening stages were always
likely to be critical. The sting appeared to be going from Malmo’s bite when
Rosenberg swooped. For Celtic, it was a savage blow.
They could — should — have been
level with the chalked off Bitton goal. Who knows how different this tie might
have been with more competent refereeing.
Yet, a defence recast to throw
Charlie Mulgrew in at left-back and Saidy Janko at right-back, for the injured
Mikael Lustig, flailed and flapped from the start.
There is an argument for goalkeepers
commanding corner situations. Yet there were times when Craig Gordon kept
Celtic in this far longer than he might have.
In the immediate aftermath of the
disallowed goal, the Scotland keeper produced an outstanding save before
half-time, Rosenberg backheeling the ball into the path of Nikola Djurdjic for
what looked a certain goal until Gordon pawed the ball away.
He was at it again in 54 minutes,
producing a stunning double save from Vladimir Rodic then Djurdjic once more.
The respite was short-lived. From a meat and drink corner, Celtic defended
amateurishly once more. Boyata, of whom concerns are growing, made a dreadful
hash of defending it, appearing to put into his own net until Carvalho was
granted the benefit of the doubt.
Celtic now needed two goals. Malmo
had the scent of blood in their nostrils and even one looked beyond them. The
home crowd spent the second half in a state of rhapsody.
Kris Commons was thrown on at
half-time, Nadir Ciftci and Gary Mackay-Steven being Deila’s last throws of the
dice.
One goal might have created a
nervous ending. The old tactic of throwing van Dijk up front to attack a
barrage of high balls was a sign of the growing desperation and forlorn nature
of this contest.
Even with Ciftci on the field beside
Griffiths, the Parkhead side lacked any bite — although the Scottish striker
was lucky not to have been more severely reprimanded for an errant knee on a
Malmo opponent earlier in the match.
This defeat marked Celtic’s first
since April 19 and the Scottish Cup semi-final. There was a handball
controversy then. And some dismal defending. Yet when Celtic seek the reasons
for their demise for a second successive year here, a mirror should suffice.
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