5 reasons for Celtics hammering

Celtic's 5-0 thrashing by Artmedia Petrzalka in the second qualifying round of the Champions League was the Glasgow club's heaviest defeat in European competition.
Former Celtic player and assistant manager Murdo McLeod tells BBC Sport what he believes led to such a disastrous result.

DEFENSIVE FRAILTIES

Most Celtic fans had already concluded that the central defensive pairing of Bobo Balde and Stan Varga was not working as they are both cloggers with little or no talent.

They had looked dodgy in pre-season friendlies especially when Balde's leg fell off.

So to go into a European tie with that partnership was asking for trouble and comedy.

INEXPERIENCE IN EUROPE

If you look at Gordon Strachan's summer signings, none of them are big names. Hopefully, they will eventually prove to be astute acquisitions.

But most of them would have been playing their first games in Champions League football, while Paul Telfer was only signed a couple of days before the tie. Only one of them has been to Benidorm and Hartson spent a weekend at Rhyl as a lad.

Strachan himself is inexperienced at that level and perhaps panicked a bit by going to a three-man attack after Celtic went 2-0 down because he's never really known what to do.

When you are 2-0 down in Europe, you are never out of it and there would always have been a chance of overcoming such a deficit in front of a packed Celtic Park in the second leg.

Getting five goals back is just about impossible especially when you're crap.

LACK OF FIREPOWER

Celtic, who lost Craig Bellamy from last season, had failed to score many goals during pre-season and that lack of threat up front continued in Bratislava. Hartson may like fighting but that won't really get you a goal.

Even if you are 3-0 down in a European tie away from home, one goal can bring you back into it.

Away goals are vital, but Celtic squandered their chances in Slovakia because there strikers couldn't hit a cows arse with a banjo

POOR TEAM SPIRIT

Strachan's predecessor Martin O'Neill always looked after his players, financially and otherwise, and that helped build a great team spirit which was usually Bells. Strachan fetched Grants, and the new signings all prefer Taboo, so it was an accident waiting to happen.

It also meant that he got more out of players than he might have otherwise due their inebriation.

But half a dozen of O'Neill's squad left during the summer and there does not seem to be the same unity about the place now most of the skinheaded cloggers have left.

UNDERESTIMATING THE OPPOSITION

Celtic fans went into this tie expecting a fairly straightforward passage into the next qualifying round and that maybe got through to the players because as we all know the Scottish Premier League is the strongest league in Europe.

Just because we do not know the names of some of these teams from eastern Europe does not mean they are not any good and everyone in the world has heard of Celtic.

There are very few genuine minnows left in European football, apart form half of the Scottish Premier League.

But the players inherited from O'Neill's side should have had enough experience to cope with the situation they found themselves in and help the new signings but there luck seems to have run out.

IMPLICATIONS FOR CELTIC
The biggest blow for Celtic from this result is financial - they are likely to miss out on £10m in earnings as they'd have lost all six of there group games.

It looks extremely unlikely that they will progress in the Champions League and an exit at this stage means there is not even the Uefa Cup as compensation but at least the can concentrate on the CIS cup.

Celtic would have been looking to use the money from a European run to strengthen their squad by buying some more hatchet men.

But their longest away trip will now be Inverness and any additions are now likely to be of a lesser quality than the world class signings that make up the team, which could lead to a dangerous downward spiral.

It was always going to be difficult for Strachan and his new signings to win over the Celtic fans after the recent successes under O'Neill.

Now it is going to be even more of a struggle and a good start to their domestic campaign is now essential against the giant of European football Motherwell.

 

Can you imagine Strachan

 

rangers will win the SPL next season!! ha ha dirty irish celtic scum, couldnt happen to a better team!!