Celtic’s season continues to lurch from ignominious failure to embarrassing disappointment to crushing setback – and there is little if any evidence at the moment that matters are going to improve any time soon.
The Scottish champions, who drew 0-0 with Hibernian at Parkhead by Hibernian on Saturday and surrendered top spot in the Premiership to Hearts in the process, slumped to a 2-0 home defeat to Braga of Portugal in their second Europa League league phase match last night.
Brendan Rodgers’ men fought back valiantly after gifting their opponents the opening goal in the first half and looked to have levelled through Kelechi Iheanacho in the second - only for the strike to be chalked off for handball after a lengthy VAR check.
Still, there could be no excuses for this lamentable reverse. The boos which greeted the final whistle told their own story. Here are five talking points from another difficult evening for Celtic.
Bernardo blunder
The lack of first team game time which Paulo Bernardo has had this season was raised with Rodgers by a visiting Portuguese journalist at the pre-match press conference yesterday. With Reo Hatate struggling with an injury, it has been surprising that his understudy hasn’t had more of a chance.
Rodgers put it down to the 23-year-old not being fully fit and pointed out he joined up with the squad for pre-season slightly later due to commitments with his country’s under-21 side at the European Championship finals in Slovakia. But he also stressed the £3.5m signing was very much in his thoughts.
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Sure enough, the lesser spotted midfielder was involved from kick-off. The man who set up the last minute winner against Rangers in the Scottish Cup final last year has shown he can perform at the highest level at home and abroad during his time in the East End of Glasgow and he had some nice moments.
But his manager may have regretted giving him the nod in the 20th minute when Braga captain Ricardo Horta lashed in the opener from fully 30 yards out. Yes, it was a helluva strike. Yes, Kasper Schmeichel should have dealt with it better than he did. But his opposite number gave him far too much time and space.
Sloppy Schmeichel
But the Celtic goalkeeper should have done better, far, far better, than he did as well. The Dane flapped at the long-range effort with one hand and was unable to keep it out. He was poorly positioned and paid the price for that. He had time to adjust himself and failed to.
Schmeichel has been nothing short of a revelation since moving to Scotland on a free transfer last year. He has often been at his best in continental competition. His shot stopping ability and prowess with the ball at his feet have been invaluable. But he is 38 now, 39 next month. He can ill afford to make more costly errors like it.
Second half shock
Nobody inside the ground saw the changes that Rodgers made coming. He hooked Colby Donovan, put on Marcelo Saracchi and switched from a four man to a three man defence with Kiern Tierney, Liam Scales and Cameron Carter-Vickers at centre-half and Daizen Maeda and Saracchi at wing-back.
The Northern Irishman used the same formation during his time with Leicester City. But it was difficult to remember him reverting to such tactics at Celtic. His side adopted a 3-4-3 set up in possession and morphed into a 5-3-2 when they were defending. When Iheanacho appeared to level, it looked to have worked.
VAR controversy
The Celtic supporters’ delight, though, proved short-lived. German referee Tobias Stieler suspected that the Nigerian internationalist had handled during the build-up to the leveller and refused to award it. There was VAR check which took an eternity. When it finally finished, the scoreline remained 1-0.
But television replays failed to show that the ball had made contact with the forward’s arm conclusively. It looked very much as if it struck his head as he bore down on Lukas Hornicek in the Braga goal. It was a harsh call. Worse than that, it was the wrong one.
The home side continued to dominate and Sebastian Tounekti, who was outstanding from start to finish, looked to have earned them point when he jinked into the opposition area and curled a shot just inside the right post. Hornicek somehow managed to tip his attempt past the upright.
With bodies committed forward, Celtic were hit with a sucker punch with five minutes of regulation time remaining. Substitute Gabri Martinez made it 2-0 and effectively sewed up the victory. The tiny pocket of away supporters in the corner of the ground celebrated wildly as their green and white counterparts headed for the exits.
Vocal protest
It looked like a large proportion of the Celtic support had boycotted the Europa League ticket package when proceedings got underway. The stadium was half-full and unusually quiet. A sure sign that fans are fed up and want to see changes in how their club is run and who is running it?
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Not really. The 5.45pm kick-off time had a lot to do with the low turnout. The seats filled up as the match progressed and the atmosphere was half-decent when the hosts were on the attack during the opening exchanges.
A group calling themselves the Celtic Fans Collective had called off a planned silent protest – they had intended not to make any noise for the opening 29 minutes on Wednesday when chief executive Michael Nicholson and chief financial officer Chris McKay agreed to meet with their representatives.
The ultras put the club at risk of another UEFA fine when they unfurled a banner accusing the governing body of being “complicit in genocide” by refusing to boot Israel out of their competitions early in the first half. But they were in fine voice thereafter. Not that they manged to inspire their heroes
There were inevitable chants of “sack the board” towards the end of the 90 minutes and directors were targeted for abuse as they left their seats in the main stand. The Scottish champions are very much a work in progress. They need, though, to find their form fast or unrest in the stands will grow and grow.
