Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou insisted he should take the blame for two more dropped points after a 1-1 draw with Dundee United and not the Hoops players.
It looked like becoming a routine Premiership Parkhead win for the hosts when Liel Abada headed his side into the lead in the first half.
But just two minutes later United would hit back through Ian Harkes and that's how the match remained – despite Celtic smashing the crossbar on three separate occasions.
It leaves Celtic six points behind Rangers at the top and sitting in sixth place in the table with Bayer Leverkusen up next on Thursday night in the Europa League.
Speaking to Celtic TV, Postecoglou said: "Sometimes as a manager you've just got to take the responsibility for the result away from the players.
"The players gave everything today, we created enough chances to win comfortably and it wasn't for the want of trying, we hit the crossbar three or four times.
"From that perspective, the players will be fired up for Thursday and we just need to let them recover now and freshen them up."
Postecoglou's team created chances aplenty but failed to take any of them bar Abada's early goal.
He added: "I'm disappointed for the lads, we created enough chances to win a couple of games.
"Unfortunately they didn't go in for us today, the players tried awfully hard but it wasn't to be.
"Even at the end we were still creating chances, good chances.
"We couldn't really change it up from the bench but we were still threatening going forward as we tried to get that second goal to break them open.
"But it didn't come."
To make matters worse, Postecoglou was forced into two changes through injury by the start of the second half and he'll be hoping Josip Juranovic and James McCarthy won't be out for a considerable amount of time.
He joked he must have walked under a ladder recently such is his luck. Perhaps this time he strayed into the path of a black cat on the way to Glasgow's east end. While dropping a mirror.
"We'll just see how both are," he sighed. "Jura felt his hamstring, and I think Macca was feeling the effects of the tackle early on.
"Hopefully it's not too bad."
