TALKING CELTIC

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A AS CELTIC and their army of followers made their weary, bleary retreat from Paris yesterday morning, it seemed worthwhile issuing a reminder of the good news.

With every shot which whizzed remorselessly past Craig Gordon last night, Celtic were all but securing their passage i nto continental football beyond Christmas.

All they require now to seal a Europa League last-32 place is to avoid a three-goal defeat against Anderlecht in Glasgow, a task which this group of players should be able to achieve comfortably.

That, ultimately, will be job done, a demonstration of clear progression from last season.

Champions League football is brutal, unforgiving stuff and anyone who thought Celtic ever had much more to shoot for from this group was deluding themselves.

Now, for the more awkward questions.

Is it acceptable for the champions of Scotland to take a 7-1 defeat against any team, albeit one as ludicrously talented and expensively assembled as Paris St Germain?

Is that just what Champions League football is now, an imperative to get out of town against the continental’s elite clubs with as little embarrassment as possible?

Once again last night the mantra was about the importance of learning lessons from the ‘best of the best’, but are Celtic actually learning their lessons or merely repeating their past mistakes?

Some, certainly, of that travelling army of supporters would have traded Moussa Dembele’s stunning goal within 59 seconds – a real feather in the club’s cap as it was the first time PSG had conceded in Europe this season – for a more mundane two or three-nil defeat where they rarely ventured over the halfway line.

Then there are the follow-up questions. How damning a judgement should be made about this series of individuals?

Should we just shrug the 12-1 aggregate scoreline off, as PSG can boast a top-10 player in every position – and in some cases, most notably Neymar – the very best exponent of that role in the world?

Or will the wider world start looking at such humbling scorelines and determine that it adversely affects the standing on the world scene of both Brendan Rodgers and his players?

Tearing up Scottish football right now or not, exposure to this level of competition only illustrated how far certain players still have to travel.

Dembele, for instance, might have grabbed the goal but if he wants to be a world superstar he must do more with the space he often found in the left channel abandoned by Alves’ forward thrusts.

At least four further times he found himself there with a chance to engage PSG’s central defenders one-on-one and was generally unable to capitalise.

By contrast, any time Celtic squandered possession in their own half, a PSG goal was almost automatic – with finishes flying in with unerr- ing accuracy either off the woodwork or into the bottom corner.

FINGERS were pointed in Craig Gordon’s direction, but these were shots which would have taken some saving.

“I don’t think there was a great deal I could have done about the goals,” said Gordon.

“Everything they seemed to hit was going in at the posts. Every single one was of tremendous quality. You could go through them all.

“I had a few decent saves in the game, I would have liked to have had more, but the quality of the finishing was so good wasn’t able to do that.

“There’s always things to try to improve on. I’ll go through the game with Stevie Woods but I don’t think we’ll have too many talking points from the game, to be honest. That can happen as a goalkeeper.”

Gordon has shipped seven goals in a match before, just not for nine years. He did in a 7-1 defeat for Sunderland against Everton in Dec 08.

He was dropped by Roy Keane for the next game but it would seem unlikely the veteran will suffer that fate on Sunday. “I’ve lost seven before, it’s not the first time,” said Gordon.

“I probably made my best save of the night when it was at seven.

“It saved it going to eight, which would have been even worse.

“We want to challenge ourselves against these kinds of teams but Wednesday was not the night. They were too good.

“We could have just kicked it to them and let them come back at us that way,” he added.

“That’s the debate. But then you don’t have the ball and you’re trying to limit the dam-