Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Champs League agony for Hoops
Bhoys look a spent force against mediocre AEK without splashing cash
AMIDST the ruins of ancient Athens, Celtic crumbled. Their Champions League dreams in a heap. Reduced to rubble by another evening of atrocious defending on the continent.
An agonising and painful finale to a special spell for Celtic. A two-year run which has brought nothing other than success and progress brought to a dismal halt. Another shot at the big time gone. Replaced by regrets and now, naturally, recriminations. For all Brendan Rodgers, his board and the squad have been rightly lauded for the previous two campaigns, there are those who will be lashed because of the way this third bid to make the big time ended.
Losing out in the qualifiers is hardly a crime. With four rounds to negotiate and teams such as AEK to get past, there was always a chance Celtic might not make it.
But, in the eyes of the fans, they put the bullets through their own feet.
AEK were decent but they were still beatable.
There’s disgust that, somehow, Celtic could enter these crucial qualifiers with a squad which was weaker than the one which went out of the Europa League in February to Zenit St Petersburg.
Either the proper transfer planning was not in place by the football department or, if it was, the men upstairs did have not have the necessary funds or the right feel to deliver on those specific plans.
Celtic got it away with it in the past. Not this time.
Woeful defending again last night saw a team which dominated for large spells of the 180-minute tie go spinning out.
Two goals lost from where Dedryck Boyata might have been positioned had he decided
to travel instead of sitting on his couch letting his colleagues down.
To be fair, Celtic have lost enough bad goals in Europe when the Belgian’s been in the team to render that absence a non excuse.
Not even a stirring fightback and a Scott Sinclair counter which put Celtic within a goal of advancement and set-up a nerve-wracking finish could disguise the harsh truth.
Even before kick-off, news that Odsonne Eduoard was missing through injury just added to an impending sense of doom. AEK were ready.
Stadium half-full or not, it was rocking and Celtic would have to stand strong. Be solid in the face of an early Greek push. The brittle Boyata-less defiance lasted six minutes.
Mikael Lustig not doing enough at right-back to stop the cross from AEK ace Niklas Hult, no-one taking command in the centre as the ball raged across and Rodrigo Galo able to saunter in between Olivier Ntcham and Kieran Tierney to stroke into the net.
It was almost a carbon-copy of the goal lost in the first leg.
Ironically, the early home goal got Celtic a foothold and just after the half hour, Griffiths almost levelled it.
Rodgers’ team emerged for the restart needing to put something solid on top of the building blocks they had laid.
Instead, they crumbled again. Vassilis Lambropoulos towered above Hendry to get the ball into danger where striker Marko Livaja was unmarked six-yards out and nodded Celtic to the brink of elimination.