Munich misery for Celtic
● Boss Rodgers looks to positives and says defeat won’t derail club’s bid to be in Europe after Christmas
Brendan Rodgers claimed the loss of poor goals rather than lack of pragmatism was the major contributing factor to his side’s 3-0 Champions League defeat away to Bayern Munich last night, with the Celtic manager insisting the loss will not derail his bid to stay in Europe beyond Christmas.
Goals from Thomas Muller, Joshua Kimmich and Mats Hummels brought an easy win for the German champions on an evening where Rodgers detected positives. The biggest, though, was events in Brussels where a 4-0 win for Paris Saint-germain over Anderlecht ensured that Celtic stay three points ahead of the pointless Belgians in the hunt for the third place in Group B that provides entry into the Europa League.
“It’s not about being pragmatic at the goals we conceded,” he said. “We didn’t defend our box well enough when the crosses came in. We can do better with those. But, listen, I would rather lose a game playing how we want to play and how we want to work rather than sitting in and defending for 90 minutes and still losing, if that’s the case. Myself, my staff and the players can take lots of positives and have lots to look forward to in the second game against them at Celtic Park
“For this group and this squad, it is about constructing a mindset and a way of working. It is not going to happen overnight. There are a lot of elements. You come away into these big arenas and big games and you want to show the level of your football. That won’t change. We will look to do that, rather than sitting in and suffering duringeverygame. Ithinkmyplayers gave absolutely everything tonight. This is a really honest group of men, who have been amazing domestically and to qualify for this competition. It’s a huge ask for us. Progress for us is to be in Europe after Christmas and that is still our aim and still our focus.”
Champions League nights are forever presented as occasions to be embraced by Celtic but their flailing in the Allianz was another evening in the competition simply to be endured by the Scottish champions.
Brendan Rodgers spoke pre-match about his team’s duty to show the nerve to play their own game in the exalted company provided by Bayern Munich in an effort to avoid another heavy defeat by one of the elite members of the European game. In the past 14 months Celtic have lost 5-0 against Paris Saint-germain and 7-0 against Barcelona.
But the utterly predictable, one-sided nature of the contest was not down to some dereliction on the part of his players, so much as deficit in talent compared to their Bavarian hosts. Their movement and power, even amidst some wastefulness in possession, was all too much for Rodgers’ side, who were fortunate that the scoring did not assume the proportions of these other lancings. Two goals down inside 28 minutes to efforts from Thomas Muller and Joshua Kimmich, Bayern missed a raft of secondhalf chances after going 3-0 ahead in the 50th minute through Mats Hummels.
Never is the chasm in quality Celtic cannot bridge more cruelly exposed in the Champions League domain than in the defensive department. Another makeshift backline made for an impossible shift for those within it. In truth, it is doubtful it would have made much difference had Jozo Simunovic had been fit to partner Dedryck Boyata. Yet it certainly didn’t help Celtic’s cause that Mikael Lustig had to be detailed to do that job, which meant Cristian Gamboa filling the right-back berth vacated by the Swede.
It was painful to watch the Costa Rican, in only his second start of the season, corkscrewing as he attempted to deal with Kingsley Coman. He strived manfully to avoid constantly seeing the back of the Frenchman but he was probably picturing the winger’s No 29 even when he closed his heady lids last night.
There is no reason to expect Celtic to be able to live with any “superclub”, as Rodgers called a monied Munich side with pretensions to win the trophy. And one with vigour renewed following the return of Jupp Heynckes, pictured,the club’s go-to manager who was in the technical area for a Champions League outing for the first time since leading the club to victory in the tournament in the final weeks of his third spell four years ago. Never mind that they were on a ten-game winning run in the group stages in their epic 70,000 arena that is all bells and whistles and more bells, the pre-match razzmatazz that amounted to a riot of colour and noise that would have been befitting of a concert by one of those soft rock stadium-fillers which the Germans seem to love.
Instead, it was a soft touch of an opponent that provided the entertainment because, for all that Bayern are operating many levels above Celtic, the Glasgow side did nothing to make Bayern extend themselves to pick off goals. It was only Arjen Robben, making his 100th appearance in the competition, that they had any real joy in frustrating. Clearly desperate to bag a goal as he brought up his century, he was deprived when Gamboa threw himself across the goalline to block a header from the Dutchman.
Such body-on-the-line moments weretoofewasbayernseemedtofind space in the final third with alarming ease. The warnings were there before an opener that followed from Rob-
ert Lewandowski drifting into a different timezone from a static Lustig and Boyata to meet a Kimmich chip from the right. Lewandowski’s low header brought a superb one-handed hand save down to his left from Craig Gordon – who made a series of notable stops across the evening – only for the rebound to be drilled in by Muller for 1-0.
The second came when Coman had Gamboa revolving like a spinning top before hanging up a cross that Kimmich attacked at the edge of the box to head powerfully into the top lefthand corner with precision and ease.
The third goal was another of utter simplicity, with Hummels’ nonchalant run and jump to head in a Robben corner. There was little in the way of the physicality or aggression sought by Rodgers but there was some sort of token resistance, with Scott Sinclair and late substitutes Moussa Dembele and Tom Rogic seeking a consolation goal. Sinclair, indeed, had the ball in the net only for his strike to be ruled out for offside – Bayern having two ‘goals’ that met this fate.
The Champions League contest Celtic are in does not involve Munich, who will be at Celtic Park in a fortnight for the return, or PSG. It’s between them and Anderlecht. And thanks to their 3-0 win in Brussels last month, at the halfway stage of the group campaign, and with the Belgians pointless, that is at least one battle Celtic are in a position to prosper in.