Rival boss fears Parkhead wide Bhoys getting cross
Ferencvaros boss Peter Stoger admitted his side must shut down Celtic’s wing kings to have any chance this week after they suffered a confidence-rattling defeat last night.
The Hungarian champions and domestic leaders had a frustrating evening in a shock loss at the hands of mid-table Zalaegerszegi.
With Tuesday’s Europa League do-or-die clash with the Hoops in mind, Stoger rotated his line-up. But it backfired – and he revealed he’ll need to pick his squad up ahead of the Hoops’ visit.
With one eye on the Parkhead men, he said: “We knew that we could expect crosses from Zalaegerszegi and there’s two solutions – you either prevent them or defend against them but we didn’t do either consistently.
“We know that on Tuesday, a lot of similar situations await us against Celtic, the task is to better defend against such balls and find consistency. We also had opportunities, good chances, and even penalties. We couldn’t take them.
“We were also a bit unlucky, I could see that the boys were doing everything they could to win but we’re still disappointed.”
Stoger’s call to rotate backfired almost immediately when Nikola Serafimov thumped in a seventh -minute opener after the Fradi defence failed to clear properly.
And it was 2-0 in 23 minutes when Mark
Koszta got clear of his marker to nod in at the near post from a teasing cross.
But Ferencvaros dug in and got their reward seconds before the break when a rocket from Balint Vecsei cut the deficit.
Ryan Mmaee should have levelled soon after but saw his effort crash back off the bar from six yards – and he hit it again from a free-kick. It looked like they’d finally get the point they deserved in added time when a VAR review awarded Frodi a penalty.
But a rough afternoon for Mmaee still wasn’t over with his spot kick saved after a stuttering run-up.