FALSE START! be you!
Ange’s big opening night falls flat after Bitton red and Barkas howler let Danes in for draw
ANGE POSTECOGLOU last night assumed full responsibility for Celtic’s failure to get off to a flier against Midtjylland in the Champions League.
Hampered by a lack of new faces, the Australian was denied a winning start after Evander’s secondhalf free-kick cancelled out Liel Abada’s opener.
Nir Bitton undermined Celtic’s chances of victory in the first leg by being sent off just before the break with his side a goal to the good and seemingly in the ascendancy.
Fingers were also pointed at Vasilis Barkas after
CONQUERING the peaks of these Champions League qualifiers is a tough enough business at the best of times. Just try doing it with your legs shackled and your eyes blindfolded.
That’s pretty much the extent of the task Ange Postecoglou faced here last night.
Already hampered by a lack of new blood in his squad, the Australian must have felt like drawing some with force from Nir Bitton after the Israeli’s ludicrous sending-off took the wind out of Celtic’s sails four minutes after Liel Abada had fired them in front.
Sometimes, there is simply no legislating for the crass stupidity of certain individuals. With a minute of the first half to be played, Celtic were a goal to the good and beginning to fancy this one.
Anders Dreyer, the Midtjylland midfielder, burst into the penalty box and attempted to win a penalty with a dive so theatrical it belonged in a West End production.
Bitton was peeved. And rightly so. But the Israeli, who was on a booking, lost all sense of perspective by jabbing his finger into the face of his opponent.
A second yellow followed by a red was inevitable. A more senseless and selfish act of self-harm you will not see on a football field this season.
Bitton aside, a patchwork Celtic side had no failures but the displays of Ryan Christie, David Turnbull and Stephen Welsh were especially noteworthy here.
With his contract expiring in January, all eyes are on how Christie performs in these moments but he was back to his inventive and industrious best.
It was his enterprise that set up Abada for an opener that could yet prove significant in this tie.
The finer details of the culture Postecoglou will seek to create at Celtic largely remain unknown but the club should already be thankful that it evidently does not tolerate excuses.
Had he wished to lean on them, the Australian had a bundle of them here: A lack of fresh faces, no director of football, none of his trusted coaches. All told, he needed Bitton’s moment of madness like a hole in the head.
This was not the result that Postecoglou would have wished for on his first competitive game but, given the lowered expectations that had preceded the match, he will be encouraged by much of what he saw. The fervent hope for Celtic fans here was that the Danes would struggle to click after their own period of transition with Frank Onyeka only yesterday joining Brentford and a new face in the dug-out in Bo Henriksen.
On this evidence, Celtic should not travel to Denmark next week nursing any inferiority complex. It said much about the glacial rate of change thus far under Postecoglou that Abada, the Israeli winger, was the only new recruit in his first competitive starting line-up.
Absent from competitive games for 16 months, the 9,000 fans fortunate enough to gain entry were intent on savouring every second. And who could blame them?
Midtjylland were a physically imposing side. Egged on relentlessly by a shaggy-haired manager dressed for a night on the tiles, they tried to press the life out of a Celtic defence with Bitton, a midfielder, at its heart.
Bitton required treatment up the tunnel following an early crunch with Junior Brumado. Ismaila Soro’s stint as a deputy centrehalf, though, was short-lived.
With Raphael Onyedika Nwadike, the Danes’ central midfielder, also requiring prolonged treatment, it made for a fractured opening.
It took Celtic 25 minutes to put a cohesive move together. Soro’s thrust forward opened space up for Christie, who fired the ball right to Abada.
Odsonne Edouard was alert to the winger’s pass but fired narrowly over on the turn.
Midtjylland were cute and often cynical, getting too much past Swiss referee Sandro Scharer for Celtic’s liking.
Yet, he had absolutely no option but to caution Henrik Dalsgaard for a brutal scything of Greg Taylor.
The same applied when Bitton took out Brumado on the halfway line, a yellow card a small price to pay as the Danes broke at pace.
Abada grew into the contest.
Latching on to Turnbull’s smart back heel, his cross picked out Christie who struck the upright from six yards out while stretching.
You could see Celtic growing as a whole, too. After struggling to get a foothold, they now had the Danes where they wanted them.
Arriving six minutes before the break, the goal underscored the value of shooting on sight. Christie did just that, his left-foot effort forcing Jonas Lossi to spring to his left. Abada was alert to the rebound and calmly converted a
chance that was harder than he made it appear.
Who knows what the winger might have gone on to do here? He was the man sacrificed after Bitton aggressively remonstrated with Dreyer, the former St Mirren player. Dane Murray, who turned 18 last month, was called from the bench for his competitive debut.
Celtic survived their numerical disadvantage for the 11 secondhalf minutes it took for Dreyer to also take the long walk, a second booking for diving added to the one he earned for squaring up to Bitton.
With more space to play, Christie fought for the right to find Soro who, in turn, picked out McGregor.
The newly-appointed skipper advanced and crashed a shot off the upright from 20 yards.
A gem of a pass from Christie then sent Edouard bounding towards goal — but a clipped finish was not the way to beat Lossi on this occasion.
Evander went agonisingly close to levelling with a thunderous shot but Celtic’s goal only survived for a few minutes more.
They were undone on 66 minutes through the same source after Welsh was penalised for taking ball plus man. Evander’s powerful free-kick arced from the left side of the box away from the reach of Vasilis Barkas and in off the far post. The Greek should have done better.
The game rather petered out thereafter, save a late Tom Rogic curler which was well fielded by the Danish keeper.
With away goals now scrapped, though, Celtic are still in this tie. Thanks, in absolutely no part, to the errant Bitton.
CELTIC (4-2-3-1): Barkas 5; Ralston 6, Bitton 3, Welsh 7, Taylor 6; Soro 6, McGregor 7; Christie 7, Turnbull 7 (Rogic 77), Abada 7 (Murray 44); Edouard 5 (Ajeti 77). Subs not used: Bain, Hazard, Griffiths, Bolingoli, Urhoghide, Shaw, Forrest, Henderson, Montgomery. Booked: Bitton. Sent off: Bitton.
MIDTJYLLAND (4-3-3): Lossi 6; Dalsgaard 6, Sviatchenko 6, Hoegh 6, Paulinho 6 (Andersson 87); Anderson 6 (Mabil 73), Nwadike 6 (Madsen 83), Evander 6; Dreyer 4, Brumado 6 (Hansen 87), Sisto 5. Subs not used: Cools, Olafsson, Nicolaisen, Thompson, Torp, Dyhr, Stange Lind, Fraulo. Booked: Dalsgaard, Dreyer, Nwadike. Sent off: Dreyer. Referee: Sandro Scharer (Switzerland). Man of the match: Ryan Christie. Attendance: 9,000.