Despite Hoops’ Europa exit, Charly is positive over his learning curve
DHe hasn’t been in Scotland long enough to use the phrase “back to auld claes and porridge”. But Charly Musonda delivered the sentiment pretty neatly after Celtic’s European exit on Thursday.
Brought up on loan from Chelsea in the January window, the Belgian Under- 21 internationalist showed his quality when setting up Callum Mcgregor for his goal in the first-leg home win over Zenit St Petersburg, to spark hopes of a prolonged Europa League run.
A 3- 0 defeat in the Russian return, though, ensured he and his new team-mates will have to wait until next season for more continental action.
Nevertheless, Musonda insists he is relishing the prospect of surviving on the hearty domestic fare which will be provided by the Premiership and Scottish Cup – even if it is an experience he fully expects to bring him shortterm pain for long- term gain.
“It has been really hard, but I expected that,” he said, as he looked ahead to this afternoon’s clash with Aberdeen at Pittodrie.
“In the Premier League there are more 50:50 games, but this is Celtic. We are expected to win every time because I think we have much better players than every single team.
“Everybody wants to beat us, so they give everything in the matches and there are more personal duels.
“It’s normal that teams will come to rough us up
“For myself I just try to play my game, get on the ball and accept that is the way it is.
“I’m enjoying it, it’s a good learning curve for me.
“It is good to go up against players who are going to bring that toughness, and this will help my development as a footballer.
“I will learn from this between now and the end of the season. Next season I will get better and bring more to Celtic.
“This is why I am here. It’s a great experience to be at this great club.
“I’ve had my first month, played three or four games and had some European gametime, too. So it’s been good.
“Even though we are out, I think having played in the two matches has been good.
“It’s still early days (in terms of the 18-month loan) but we are going for two trophies between now and the end. of the season and we will give everything for that.
“Next season we will go again.” Musonda is admirably positive, yet he admits to a regret about an exit that looked all too avoidable.
Celtic’s failures at the goals were of a nature not too often seen at that level, with Branislav Ivanovic given a free header at the first and goalkeeper Dorus de Vries utterly deceived at the second, later borrowing from baseball to describe the shot as a “knuckle ball”.
Even after such a convincing scoreline, Celtic’s new recruit still believes the visitors had the better players on the pitch.
“It was a tough night, 3- 0 is not what we came here for,” he said in St Peterburg.
“We went all in, but conceding the early goal really went against us.
“When you have that 1-0 scoreline from the first leg, the most- important thing is to try to keep the clean sheet for as long as you can.
“After eight minutes they scored their first goal and it was ideal for them.
“So, in the end, it couldn’t happen for us this season, which is a shame.
“It’s hard to tell how far this team could go, but over these two games I don’t think they were a better side than us.
“It’s positive that next season we can go into Europe thinking we have a chance to do something good, with reaching the Champions League, obviously, our goal.
“I think we have a better team than Zenit, but they performed better than us on the night.
“They scored three goals, so deserve to go through. But we had a really good chance, especially in the first leg.
“We could have perhaps scored many more goals at Celtic Park, and taken a bigger lead to Russia.
“That might have made all the difference. “It was exciting because I was looking to play many more nights in Europe, but I will just have to wait for next season.
“And, of course, the assist for the goal (from Callum Mcgregor) was a highlight for me, a moment to remember.
“We keep going and, hopefully, next season we can give a good push on all fronts.”