What a bewildering night, a point away from home in Europe is normally a very decent result but when you consider we were the far better team missing chance after chance to put the game out of sight, it is extremely frustrating.
The first half performance of new signing Hakšabanović who looked a threat every time the ball was at his feet and capping off the display with an assist for Hatate’s opening goal seems to indicate that Ange has unearthed another formidable attacking talent, on the other side Jota had a Jekyll and Hyde type performance, absolutely world class at points with twice taking on the entire Shakhtar defence on his own but then he was wasteful and over complicated his work at other times.
This performance should give us great hope for the rest of the group stages as this Shakhtar side were able to comfortably beat RB Leipzig in Germany, you would thus like to hope Celtic would also be able to do so in our Leipzig double header to come next in the group.
On the more negative side Celtic were once again extremely wasteful in front of goal, on another day they may have easily put five past the Ukrainians, Maeda in particular missing practically an open goal although his energy and desire are to be admired, I feel he lacks the finishing quality to succeed at the highest level.
Overall in balance given our past history away from home in Europe, this is a good point but extremely frustrating as we missed so many quality chances however, for us all to feel disappointed that we did not secure 3 points away in the Champions League just shows what a difference a year of Ange’s management has made to Celtic.