A rough night at Paradise for Celtic, but a delightful night for Valencia in the first leg of the Round of 32 in the Europa League.
Celtic started the first half hour quite well, gaining some confidence, but failed to create any clear cut chances. Valencia finally settled into the match in the backend of the first half, and got the opener at a very crucial time, right before halftime in minute 42 through Russian World Cup veteran, Denis Cheryshev, who caught Celtic’s back line up far too high.
Valencia came out strong in the second half, putting Celtic in an awful position, after Rubén Sobrino made no mistake from a delightful cross from Cheryshev.
Celtic still failed to create anything, even through substitutions of Timothy Weah, who seemed out of place, and Odsonne Edouard, who looked the mistake likely to score.
Celtic will now be forced with a difficult task of traveling to Mestalla to overturn the 2-0 deficit.
Lack of Quality
Overall, Celtic were absolutely abysmal on the night. A European night under disco lights sounds quite appealing, but the team’s performance was not.
Celtic have the fans nothing to cheer about. Far too many loose giveaways and unforced errors that doomed Celtic of any conviction in possession.
Too many players that were flat out bad, Callum McGregor and Odsonne Edouard were just about the only ones that were close to halfway decent on the night.
No Excuses
Injuries simply aren’t an excuse for the lackluster performance tonight. Kieran Tierney’s injury was unfortunate, but Celtic have had time to find a replacement, in which Emilio Izaguirre attempted.
Izaguirre has been such a tremendous servant to the club, but he lacks quality of defending and attacking. He looked out of place and super awkward tonight. Jeremy Toljan seemed a bit overwhelmed by the occasion.
James Forrest mysteriously went missing against Valencia. He had a halfhearted claim for a penalty early on, but other than that, he was nonexistent. He gave absolutely no service to Oliver Burke up top. Ryan Christie and Scott Sinclair were also poor and deserve much blame for the lack of quality going forward.
YNWA and nothing else
‘You’ll Ever Walk Alone’ was sensational, as always, but that was all for the Celtic support to cheer for.
Despite the heavy possession that Celtic had, they never got in behind the Valencia defense to threaten Neto, the Valencia keeper. Oliver Burke was chasing the Valencia defense for much of the game.
The only other positive from the night is that Celtic will have no one missing through suspension in leg 2, whereas Valencia will be without their captain, Geoffrey Kondogbia, who picked up a silly yellow card for timewasting.
Transfer Disappointment
While Celtic have made several impressive loan signings through Oliver Burke (West Brom), Jeremy Toljan (Borussia Dortmund), and Timothy Weah (PSG), none of them are truly out and out goal scorers.
With the recent revelation of the financial stability of the club, Celtic has a dire need for a striker of quality that can be called on in big moments like these.
Big summer window for Peter Lawell and Celtic, who better look themselves in the face and decide whether they want to keep this team mediocre or become successful football club that is back to competing with other quality European teams.