Celtic’s below par performance left a lot of Celtic fans lost for words.
From the highs of the brilliant Glasgow Derby performance, the gritty Aberdeen & Dundee United win and the classy Motherwell victory, hopes were high going into the Bodo Glimt match that the Hoops could take a few goals to Norway to help progress to the next round.
So what exactly happened? Why were the team so poor? Over confidence? Under prepared?
Pat Bonner was speaking on BBC Sportsound post match and offered his reasons why the performance was so abject, “There was a lot of talk about Bodo Glimt and how decent they were. And at the back of your mind you’re thinking, ‘Are they really that good?‘.
“And then suddenly the game starts and you could see that they were decent.
“And I just think that then Celtic players went, ‘Well we’re gonna be up against it here‘.
“And they just didn’t have the total belief that they’ve had other games. And maybe that in itself, mentally, affected them a little bit.
“And it just took away from that final piece of our game, that they’ve been brilliant that. They’ve been absolutely brilliant at that.
“And when you’re on that journey of development there is milestones. You have to sit down and analyse yourselves.
“Back to earth a little bit and say ‘Yeah, we’re a good team, but we have a lot more to do to get better to go and compete at the higher levels.‘”
Right from kick off and who can argue?
Maybe the team got carried away with recent performances. Maybe there was a bit of over confidence from us but as soon as Bodo came out the traps, our players knew we were in for a tough night.
Bodo played us at our own game. And they deserve the victory.
But as Ange says, it’s only half time.