[Official TC Thread] Celtic v Anderlecht: Tues 05/12/17, 19:45. Bt Sport ESPN

Absolutely pitiful tonight. I get that it didn’t matter but we should at least be expecting a decent performance at home in Europe but that was utterly pathetic.

I wouldn’t have went if I knew the players weren’t going to turn up either.

 

1st half was awful, Armstrong & Sinclair just empty jerseys, everyone forgot how to pass or to be brave on the ball and just shat the bed really. Bonus was we never conceded. It's as disjointed I've seen us since Ronny.

2nd half we were great for 15 mins then just sat in playing the counter. We got into great positions then kept taking the wrong option or poor touches, not releasing at the right time, frustrating as * but the job got done and we are in Europe after Christmas which is the main thing.

My biggest issue tonight was the lack of confidence of players on the ball, they train all week on passing the ball out from the back, the midfield and especially Lustig and Tierney kept passing back which just boxed us in and their press would right up. First half Gordon just punting constantly giving away the ball, at point Demebele won the ball in our half gave it to Armstrong who just punted it long when Demebele is 5 yards from him, * poor.

 

I received a text this afternoon saying that if I knew anyone looking for a ticket they had put a load online on general sale at £55 a piece, I bet those that snapped them up wished they hadn't of bothered, the truth is the only time I've had anything for the big money I and the rest of us paid for these home games was the opportunity to go mental for a few minutes after Mcgregors goal against Munich, other than that it's been like being made to watch Eastenders Omnibus whilst being strapped to an armchair.

I will be heading over to Easter Road on Sunday....thank * for domestic stuff again

 

Drowning out the champions league music for ten seconds was also fun.

Honestly though tonight wasn’t even worth the train fare to go.

 

Should start playing this before home games instead

 

Utterly pathetic performance.

 

Disappointing...as Brendan mentioned,some players think they are CL players and they are not.
It's obvious, if we want to compete in Europe then we require another level of player/s.
A big decision for the Board, stick or twist.......

 

I didn't see us that bad in the 2nd half. We deserved at least a draw. At the end of the day we finish ahead of Anderlecht and that's cool in my books.

 

I thought the second half ok and besides a freak own goal I dont think Anderlecht really looked like scoring.

That said, overall I havent seen any progress over this group stage compared to last season. It is hard to be too critical given we finished 3rd but to lose 5 of 6 games and finish third is hard to get too excited about. I dont feel too surprised as I thought our spending in the summer was based on qualifying at nothing more so I guess still being in the europa cup is on target or even above target. But unless we strengthen in January (and I doubt we will) I cant see us going very far in the Europa

 

If anderlect had have had an actual striker on the pitch we would have got humped

 

We probably needed another reality check. A lot, myself included, get carried away because of our passion sometimes. That was a bitter pill! No excuses here!! Brendans interview had a noticeably different tone.

 

Last night was a very sobering result and performance, but to be honest, I think the game plan from the start, the one thing we had to guarantee, was to avoid losing by 3. With them threatening early on this made the players go into "containment mode" (read that saying in an article earlier) which does attribute to what I watched. It was the turgid football everyone cries out for against PSG and Bayern.

I'm not making excuses for the performance, but the players know what happens when you go gung ho (Astana). There were many poor individual performances last night, and the team didn't contain them very well, despite there efforts, we were lucky to only lose by 1. Don't think we had a real clear cut chance we should've scored?

Second half was a bit more promising, but still below par. Happy to be in Europa League, would've bit your hand off at the time of the draw.

Another thing I seen last night that disappointed me more than the result, a grown man in his 30s/40s absolutely mangled, snorting powder off his wallet while there were young children around us. I'm 22 and I understand others may not be so against this sort of thing but it really, really annoyed me.

 

I honestly think folk need to have a * word with themselves man. Aye, the performance was sub par, could have done better, whatever you want to think.

Half of these bhoys have on and off played 4 games in 10 days, 3 of which against a team "in form" (1 of them being a cup final) and the other being a european tie, then to top it all off, a difficult away tie at easter road again this weekend.

Give them a * break..

Dont usually get angry at this stuff but seriously, the amount of * spouted on here and in the media is starting to do my * in.

 

Fair point tbh

 

People need to calm down a bit. Seen Rodgers getting slated last night by some. Don’t know what they saw but I saw a manager save the game last night by making the right subs at half time.

We’re in the Europa now, which is a huge step forward. A great achievement for such a young side. We have a couple of big games through to the winter break. Teams will see the invincible beginning to stumble after 18 months of constant domination, we need to rally behind the side now and get to the break.

They needed to win 3-0 and only managed a jammy deflected own goal. If we had to win that game we would’ve pushed forward and scored in the second half. Let everyone think we’re poor - it suits us fine.

 

It was brutal last night. You're talking about 6/7 players completely off par. Sinclair - couldn't get past his man, Armstrong couldn't pass wind and Dembele couldn't keep hold of the ball.

I think we approached this game with a 'Keep what we have' sort of thing, instead of trying to win the game and ignore the 3-0 previous result. So, we sat back, and let Anderlecht have the ball and do what they want to a certain degree. Had we lost 3-0 over in Belgium, we would have seen a completely different match to what we saw last night.

It looked like we didn't know whether to stick or twist and the players looked like rabbits caught in the headlight at times. The only saving grace, is for all of Anderlecht's great passing and movement, they lacked a cutting edge up front so never really threatened to really worry us and knock us out.

I was hoping to romp home 3-0 and send out a message to the Europa League that we're not here to mess about. Unfortunately, I can't see too many teams desperately hoping to avoid us after last night. Defensively, we're still short, this is always exposed in Europe.

Still, little bit * off with the performance but the bigger picture is we've done what we set out to do - European football after xmas!

The players last night all had played loads of games in a short space of time, fatigue was bound to be low, I'm happy to put it down to a bad night and move on.

 

Couldn’t agree more , someone else said if it was a two legged tie and we beat anderlecht 3-1 we would be delighted

 

As bad as we were i would just like to say i think Anderlecht fully deserved their win and the 1.5 million bonus that came with it.

They came here with a point to prove and a slim chance of getting through. They played a great game, looked like they were really up for it and it was an accomplished away performance in the CL group stage - where there are no easy games as we well know.

I hope our players watch the game back and aspire to put in such performances themselves. Any Anderlecht fans looking in.. hope you enjoyed the game, the atmosphere and your teams performance, We are not normally this poor at home but your team did your fans proud tonight.

 

The team are having a problem with the step up to the level of Europe is it down to not having to work that hard on the domestic front to win games where you can have a player or two below par but in Europe everyone needs to be on top of their game, in the group games it showed that some players were off their game and have been domestically this season compared to how they were last season. With Europe out of the way until next year lets hope the players have time to find their form and we get a run in the europa

 

Well, if there was any doubt, it's pretty obvious now. We are nowhere near good enough for the CL group stages. We may have made the Europa league but if we're honest the win in Belgium was a freak result. Anderlecht were way off form and for some reason sat off us and let us into a game which we started badly, it was Griff's goal that brought us to life. The home tie with Munich was the only time we played well for a full 90 mins and even then we found a way to lose a game we never should have done. I have never seen another team in the CL group stages that looks so ill-at-ease in possession, we struggle to string 3 passes together and our so-called defending is an utter joke, not only can we not do the basics but we continually gift needless chances through individual errors. The side has definitely gone backwards from last year, the initial surge of confidence brought to the players by BR's arrival is gradually slipping away and the likes of Armstrong, Rogic, Boyata and a few more are returning to their true level. To really improve this team you need better quality and the bottom line is it hasn't arrived. The last 2 transfer windows have been wasted and the upcoming January one will tell us whether BR has took us as far as he can or whether the club REALLY intends to push on.