Michael Stewart has ripped into the Celtic board after their catastrophic UCL exit to Midtjylland tonight.
Celtic were bundled out of UEFA’s top competition at the second qualifying round by Bo Henriksen’s side on a night to forget for the Hoops.
Callum McGregor’s stunner looked to have sent Celtic into the next round for a daunting challenge against PSV Eindhoven. But Midtjylland fired home with half an hour to go before bagging a winner in extra-time.
It’s left Celtic reflecting on a painful night for the club. Major lessons need to be learned, and Stewart highlighted the board’s failure to prepare live on Premier Sports [Premier Sports 1, 28/07, 20:48]:
“You look at the Cluj one for example. Even though they performed well in the group stages, too often they don’t get the business done that they need to for these games. Big games that come along early, they’re lacking.
“You think of the number of years they’ve gone into huge European ties with a centre-back pairing that simply isn’t good enough. In previous years it’s slightly different. This season they didn’t get the structure in place to actually enable them to go and get the deals done.
“Ange Postecoglou could’ve been in this job in February or March. They could’ve brought him in, had a free hit in the last few months of the season, whilst getting in place the targets needed to strengthen the team.”
Michael Stewart spot on; Celtic should never be losing to Midtjylland
This tie may have been officially lost tonight, but the truth is it the groundwork was laid long ago.
When the Neil Lennon era was going from one catastrophe to the next, changes were needed there and then. Bringing in Postecoglou several months ago would’ve meant he would’ve been in a much better position than he currently is.
His new signings would’ve been identified earlier. His new style of play would’ve been more ingrained into this Celtic side. More work to halt this absolute disaster of a night would’ve been done.
Imagine if Celtic had Carl Starfelt and Kyogo Furuhashi available for tonight. Imagine a first-choice right-back had been sourced and signed. The manager would’ve been in a much better place.
Every single year we’re counting the cost of a failure to prepare for these fixtures. There’s a total arrogance within this football club, and not from the manager. An arrogance that we can just waltz through these early qualifiers with ease.
Now we’re left with yet another embarrassment. Exactly like we were last year against Ferencvaros. Exactly like we were against Cluj. And once again, the board is to blame.
In other news, Tonight falls on the Celtic board and absolutely nobody else
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