Celtic may not have had the best of weekends, but none of their Europa League rivals have come out pleased either.
It was a real surprising weekend of results for the Hoops, Rennes, Cluj, and Lazio respectively. Incredibly, none of the four sides managed to pick up three points over the weekend.
Neil Lennon won’t pay too much attention to it, but it’s important to note that all sides have struggled. Perhaps not many were as much of a surprise as our 2-0 defeat at Livingston, but it’s still good to see that none of our European foes managed to get a head of steam up.
Firstly, Cluj were battered 2-0 off Celtic and were looking to find some solace in their domestic campaign. They took the trip to title rivals Vitorul, but found no respite.
Cluj found themselves 3-0 down before the hour mark at Vitorul in a Liga I table-topping clash. Emmanuel Culio notched a late penalty for the Romanian champions. However, in the end, they would slip to a rare domestic defeat as they now sit joint-top with Vitorul on 24 points.
Dan Petrescu’s agent has recently come out and said that his client would be interested in speaking to Dinamo Moscow (Daily Record). It certainly appears as though things aren’t going too well with our old foes.
Could’ve been a rout in Rennes
As for Rennes, their positive start to the season is fading fast. They went into the weekend’s home clash with Reims on a seven-game winless run. With their opponents yesterday rivaling them in the top half, it didn’t look a routine victory on paper.
And so it proved too. The Ligue 1 side slipped to a 1-0 home defeat to Reims courtesy of a Boulaye Dia strike. And in fairness to Reims, it could’ve been many more than the one they scored. Had it not been for Romain Salin in goal, it could’ve been a rout before half-time.
Lazio, our next European opponents, were held to a 2-2 draw in Bologna. It was a tasty affair too. A Ciro Immobile double pegged back strikes from Ladislav Krejci and Rodrigo Palacio respectively.
Lazio were second best in both possession and shots, and also saw Lucas Leiva sent off on 59 minutes. A frustrating afternoon for them, as they finished the weekend in sixth place.
So not one of Europa League rivals had a positive day at the weekend. At least that’s something on what was a pretty disastrous one for ourselves!
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