Dan Petrescu claims Cluj deserved to beat Celtic

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Dan Petrescu’s comments after Cluj drew with Celtic last night showed a man who was extremely frustrated.

Celtic managed to take a 1-1 draw away from Romania after James Forrest canceled out Mario Rondon’s opener. The game then settled into a pattern in the second-half as Celtic looked to sit deep and defend their lead.

This led to a couple of scary moments, but nothing too concerning for the Hoops support. There were some half-chances for George Tucudean, but Celtic generally managed to restrict Cluj on their own patch.

Yet, speaking after the game to BBC Sportsound (21:24), Petrescu believes that Cluj apparently deserved better.

“I’m sure we deserved to win. We were unlucky not to win. I’m not happy with the result but I’m happy with the performance. We played better than we expect. We missed two unbelievable chances.

“Celtic have the tradition, the fans, the players. Of course they have the advantage but you never know.”

Dan Petrescu comments a little bit off

Cluj didn’t manage to seriously threaten Celtic if we’re being honest. There was one small scare from a corner where Scott Bain had to parry the ball out and Boli Bolingoli-Mbombo cleared it. Outside of that, they didn’t really break us down.

Petrescu just comes across as frustrated here. He knows his side needed a better result than that to take to Parkhead. You now have to seriously fancy Celtic to finish off the job and progress to face Slavia Prague.

It will also be interesting to see just who Neil Lennon plays at the back next week too. Christopher Jullien started on the bench once again, but he showed when he came on that he’s capable of doing a job. With such a big fee spent on him, it would be nice to see him start the second-leg.

Of course, that’s no slight on Jozo Simunovic either. The big Croatian-born Bosnian put in a fine display in Romania last night as he didn’t make a single error alongside Kristoffer Ajer.

In any case, it was a big result. Cluj have been rattled by it, and Celtic have set themselves up to finish the job nicely next week.

Petrescu can moan all he wants about missing a couple of chances. The truth is, Celtic were just too good for Cluj on the night, and got the result we were after.