Malmö vs Celtic, 19.45 Tuesday 25th August, BT Sport Europe

There will be many variables as to why, but one of them will be psychological pressure due to the expectation put on them. No excuse, but it'll have an effect.

 

the quality of the league is a lot of *,its the quality of the players that wins games.porto dont play in a great league yet they have won the champions league.the epl is supposed to be the best league in the world,not one team made the the semi-final last year.anyway as ive said before on here the board have no ambition,too many fans are far too loyal and just accept the garbage we have to watch nowadays.i used to be buzzing to watch celtic under martin oneill,now its a choir sometimes to go to a game.we have brought in some shocking signings over the last few seasons as well.we need an overhaul from board level to manager and players.i love this club and it hurts like * to see paradise half empty with players not fit enough to wear the famous hoops jersey.

 

I read that Strømsgodset would receive 2 mill NOK (200k) if Celtic had went through.

 

what is needed is money spent on that defence if you look over the years the least amount of money being spent is the defence . ronnie doesnt seem to have a plan b in place when things are not working out and the way the celtic players were playing in the last 25 mins you would think we were 2-0 up .

 

If it wasn't for Johansen, we wouldn't have scored our first two goals at Parkhead.

 

We def need a decent CB that's for sure and van dijk hasn't looked great in the CL to be honest

 

Forrest was the only half-decent one tonight really...at least he tried. He ran at people and tried to make something happen even though he had no end product to show for it. That's more than I can say for the rest of them.

Our fullbacks tonight were particularly terrible. We know that Janko is as rapid as anything, he showed it at the weekend...yet tonight he was too scared to try and run past them. Mulgrew was just slow, sluggish and not got the attacking powers a fullback needs, I'd rather have played the defensive liability Izzy tonight because at least he'd run and cross and at least give us something in the attack. Mulgrew did * nothing all night.

 

Well, where to start from that performance. Can we call it a performance?? Is probably the first place to start!!

Pedestrian passing, when we actually passed the ball. Little to no movement off the ball had a hand in that as well. Couldn't defend set-pieces, not just corners. We got caught out from simple thrown-ins on a couple of occasions.

Did Malmo do anything outstanding or overly complicated tactically?? No, they didn't. Indeed, they have done to us what most teams in Scotland do. Our opponents on Saturday done something similar last season to us and came away with a 1-0 win. Malmo defended deep and defended the 18 yard box. They stood off and challenged us to put in the perfect delivery, we made it easier for them in that respect by failing to get in behind to the by-line and only crossing from positions where it was comfortable for them to defend. 9 times out of 10 at domestic level, we'll make the breakthrough or capitalise and win games. Malmo are a step up from anything we face domestically, the reason for that is that they have quality to play both sides of the ball. They shown they could defend as a team, they were comfortable enough on the ball, could build attacks and had two players who could cause problems in attack.

Some people I know were happy to have drawn Malmo. After all they're "only 6th in the league" and "Berget was the best player in the side". Personally, I wanted to avoid them like the plague. Why?? For the exact reasons I've just spoken about and it's why I'm sitting here with my heid skelping and disappointed.

As for ourselves. Aside from Gordon and Janko, the rest never turned up tonight.

Europa League it is and to be honest its where we deserve to be. John Collins got a lot of criticism for his comments about Scottish Football. Malmo highlighted it tonight, exactly what he was talking about.

The challenge now for Celtic, is to respond and step up the levels required, bridge the gap and develop the current to squad. We can continue to go on the cycle of "buying early 20's to sell on" which works to an extent, but also taking the opportunity to add quality outwith those parameters.

Tonight is disappointing. For me, the manner of the display outweighs the disappointment of not reaching the Champions League. We can either use our time in the Europa League to good use and look to progress the team. Our we can see it as "just another 6 games" and treat it with the disdain shown by English teams.

An interesting 12 months lies ahead in a number of areas for Celtic on and off the park.

 

You can say we aren't good enough etc. All u want, but player for player we are better than malmo - who are now I the CL two years running. So * all this pish about Europa league being 'our' level two years running we * up and are under achieving.

 

If he hadn't missed the sitter to score the third we may not have been even talking about this.

If he had turned up tonight we might not have been talking about it ....

He's got decent stats, but anyone that's actually been to the games has seen he has been terrible this season and miles below last seasons standards.

 

I hope you will a have fun time in Europa League! Here's the anthem, in case you forgot how it sounded.

 

Cheers....

Well done!

Enjoy being pumped by Chelsea!

 

You mean the right footed shot (his weaker foot) from the edge of the 18 yard box? It's a bit of an exaggeration to call that a sitter.

He's got 3 goals and 5 assists so far this season, more assists than any other Celtic player.

 

You know, I could respond to this by calling you a *, but I'm not.

You were the better side and you deserved to go through tonight, enjoy the Champions League. We will try to enjoy the Europa League too.

 

we werent good enough by far for the champions league and use just beat us

yous are gonna get smashed in the champions league lap it up fuckface :smiley-laughing002:

 

Johansen and Ambrose are always the scape goats in here it seems. He didn't play well today, but NONE did., so why just bring up his name? The whole team failed. Brown never gets critisism in here (just because everyone loves him), even if he is the captain and should set a good example.

 

Oh the banter!

Y'know, you guys deserved to go through. Enjoy.

 

We know what it sounds like pal, we've won it..

 

I wonder if the game would be different if we got that disallowed goal we should have had. Football is a strange game. Maybe Malmø would've been the nervous team then. You never know. Oh well, that doesn't really matter now.