Billel Omrani’s penalty will still frustrate Celtic fans from last week, but he hasn’t been so fortunate this time around.
Omrani dashed Celtic’s Champions League hopes with a brace at Parkhead. One of the efforts was from the spot with a weak strike that was there to be saved. However, his performance that day has led to a mystery Scottish club being linked with a bid (GSP).
We spoke yesterday about why this isn’t something we should be going ahead with. Omrani can’t be judged on his Parkhead performance alone. And yesterday proved why as his penalty was saved by Slavia Prague’s Ondrej Kolaf.
This led to some backing and criticism from manager Dan Petrescu. Here’s what he said about his striker to Ziua de Cluj.
“I don’t like to be asked about Omrani. He got us through, he scored against Celtic, now what do we do? Do we kill him? (for the penalty miss).
“He missed today. I missed it when the world was nicer to us. I told him not to hit it, it was to be hit by Rondon. But he thought he had to get the ball and hit it because he is the team’s top scorer.”
Omrani and Cluj face a tough task in the second leg
It’s fair to say that it finally looks as though Cluj are about to get knocked out of the Champions League. Slavia Prague are in firm control of the tie, and seem unlikely to lose at home.
Of course, where have we heard that one before?
It would, however, be enticing to meet Cluj in the Europa League group stages if we can make it. There’s some unfinished business there between ourselves and the Romanians. Righting some wrongs against them would also be an ideal opportunity for Neil Lennon.
But we can only reiterate that this shouldn’t be done with Omrani on our side. Sure, if you can’t judge him for his brace alone then you can’t judge him for a penalty miss either. But he’s not the clinical marksman some believe him to be, and he can’t be signed based on one performance.
Cluj director Bogdan Mara has already confirmed that there is interest in several of his club’s first-team stars. Omrani has been named as one of them too (Ziua de Cluj).
Hopefully, once again, nothing comes of this and we can move on to more pertinent targets.
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