UCL Last 16: Celtic v Juventus Chat

Agree and the only thing that is embarrassing are the comments from some folk saying that we were "*" and that the performance was "embarrassing".

 

Never back down

You've the return match

 

We played nice football at times and couldnt fault the players effort, feel sorry for Ambrose costing us the goals, spends too much time dwelling on the ball at times.

 

Well said sir.

 

The officiating was an absolute disgrace, I'm utterly dumbfounded as to how we didn't get at least one penalty.

 

We didn't play badly. Other than Ambrose and a little bit of naivety, we'd still be in the tie. 0-3 is a * especially when you have to go to Turin but we're going over there without pressure now so hopefully we can restore a bit of pride.

 

I'll get pelters for this, but we rode our luck quite a bit in the European campaign. Forster was world class in both Barca games, but without him, we may never have qualified.

There is no shame in that though, considering we are still quite inexperienced with this squad in Europe and we had arguably the hardest group.

Lennon got his tactics and team selections spot on throughout the group stages, but I fear tonight was one step too far, as I've said previously. He made a big mistake in starting both Efe and Forrest.

 

Disappointed by the performance, but delighted by the result. We didn't keep the ball well, but we defended brilliantly and were clinical, which is the opposite of what we usually are.

Quite disappointed by Celtic too, if I'm honest. You guys played well and didn't deserve the scoreline, but there was very little invention or creativity, so you only had one real chance whereas your possession and pressure would have deserved more.

As for the 'penalties' - you want the ref to give a penalty for Lichtsteiner obstructing Hooper when Hooper's sole intention is to obstruct Buffon?

 

To be honest, up until the second went in, everyone to a man was playing really well.
From the start i think we got the tactics right, apart from Efe.

When that long ball comes over Rogne would have just headed it away. But it's just the way it goes sometimes.

We went a bit gung-ho with the substitutions, Commons and Broony were playing well. But when we put on Matthews it all went * up.

But i don't blame Lenny, he played the perfect tactics but we just lacked that we bit of magic, hence why i'd have kept Bangura for his heading ability and i just knew Hooper would be ineffective against this physical defense.

What they don't like is a big physical guy up their, who can't be so easily nudged off the ball and i think Ledley could do that (sounds daft right).

A game like this would have been more suited to Miku, but fair do's Hooper gave a right good performance and so did everyone else, other than three tiny lapses in concentration, but it just happened so fast. Sometimes their's just not too much you can about it because if you even go near a tackle inside the box, they go down like Superman on Kryptonite.

We'll learn and we maybe should have sat in, i have to say fairplay to Lenny for having a right go at it and my * did the team put in a * of an effort, for 70 minutes a really brave performance and the way we closed them down and shut the ball off from midfield was fantastic.

Just a few things, like someone going for a header with a player behind them free to tap in a goal and obviously the rugby challenges.

All the papers, even in Italy will be talking about the rugby tackles, it was like WWF at times.

Disgraceful, but these guys are arrogant as they come and it looks bad for us, but we could have had four tonight, so why not four in the next game?

We have to hope and bottle up this energy and take it into the return leg.

Secret is to put the ball to Buffon's left hand side. It looked open to me all game.

Incidentally i thought he has the one, who managed to push his own player into Hooper just as the corner was being taken he wasn't even looking at the corner.

Let's not underestimate that they got a real fright, we're all just disappointed we never got the first goal, Lenny knew this was the key but unfortunately we lacked the finishing touch and Sammy in the air.

But as gutted as i am, i have to say for 70 minutes they didn't know what to do and got lucky with a big punt up the pitch - a tactic we just didn't see coming.

Imagine how funny it would be if we still went through, we have to believe and go out to make the scoreline look better and take it from their.

I've seen teams in Italy play exactly like we played for 70 minutes and then sit in, but when we needed to beef up defensively when Lustig got injured we just weren't prepared for that and the goals happened at such lightning speed their's sometimes not too much you can do about that.

Nothing is impossible, we have to go their and hope we get a better referee and play exactly the same way.

 

Sky Sports News:

'After being comprehensively outplayed'

You have to be * kidding me? English * twisting it again.

 

He's giving it large in the press conference. Really laying into the ref and the assistant behind the goal.

 

This is the lowest I've felt as a Celtic fan since that game against Rangers in 99. I just can't get my head round how we even lost that game, let alone 3-0. We were brilliant tonight. I'm not one of those "Celtic are always in the right" people, I admit we were really lucky against Barcelona, but my *, how did we lose that game?

Arios, I have enjoyed your posts on here and respect your opinions, first let me say that I agree with you that accusing Juve of bribing the ref is too far, hopefully that is just beer; but I respectfully disagree with absolutely everything else, the referee had an absolute shocker. You know fine well that our biggest weapon in Europe is set plays; and you also know fine well that your team defended that (brilliantly) by manhandling our players illegally. Not once or twice, mate, but all night long. Even with that we created some great chances, sure we fluffed them and that's another thing I can't understand because, believe me, we'd normally put at least two of them away, equally we gifted you two goals. I guess both these factors can be chalked down to inexperience and stage fright; but Arios, even with all that the least we deserved was a draw. Porto definitely did cheat against us in Seville, but let's be honest, they were the better side on the night IMO (I know it's a minority opinion here, but it's how I saw the game). This hurts much more because we were by far the better side on the night. They created one chance all night. I still just can't believe it. I haven't been this close to tears since my teens (I'm now 35). To top it all, people round Europe will see that result and think we got a doing in our own patch and that's just not what happened.

 

Exactly. I was sitting with a R*ngers fan watching it in the pub, and he said to me "I'm actually pretty glad we're not in the SPL this season. I've never seen you play this well before. You'd destroy us".

Aside from two defensive blunders (and we could have done better with our chances) we were fantastic.

 

So are you insinuating we were lucky to beat Barca? Despite the fact we were 2-0 up in injury time and both Song and Mascherano should have been sent off?

 

So much for the Juve fans saying they aren't a defensive, soaking teams in and hitting them on the counter?

 

Because the first one was sloppy or unlucky. The second one (which happened AN HOUR later) came extremely late and by the third it didn't matter any more.

Why do you think we got beat by three?

Because we're inherently * against the bronzed gods of Torino?

 

This is a young * team with only Brown having played in the last 16 before.

This was our best football playing performance in the CL this season by a mile, if we had been as clinical as we had been in the other games we might have got something. Efe made two mistakes and missed a great chance and ultimately that's we're the tie was lost.

The ref was poor and Juve obviously played in the fact the ref wasn't giving anything but that's what some teams do to win. We went toe to toe with them and a team that costs TEN TIMES AS MUCH as ours were rattled for periods and merely took their chances.

The guy that said it was regression is embarrassing from where we where 18 months ago to here is our * miracle never mind Wembley. Revel in the fact we have a young team that, if we can keep them, can only improve next season.

 

Disappointed to see fans leave early but can't blame them. Everybody I spoke to before the game thought it would be a bad idea to start ambrose, no idea why he lennon thought it was a good idea to start him. Most of the team played well and he made crucial mistakes for there 1st and 3rd goals, he clearly wasn't fit. Our corners too were poor. I would have played ronge at the back dropped Forrest for Brown on the right and kayal in the middle and tried to frustrate juventus with Forrest coming off the bench.