Celtic are in a great position in the Champions League after battering RB Leipzig last night.
The current Scottish champions blew the Bundesliga second-placed side away after a double from Nicolas Kuhn and a goal from Reo Hatate cancelled out Christoph Baumgartner’s first-half opener.
Celtic’s starting eleven to face RB Leipzig caused the fans to question why Greg Talyor was chosen ahead of the in-form Alex Valle.
But the Scotland defender showed his class, as did his Celtic teammates who were superb in the win over Leipzig and it caused Baumgartner and Peter Gulacsi to give their honest verdict on the Parkhead Champions League defeat.
Christoph Baumgartner hails Celtic hero Nicolas Kuhn vs RB Leipzig
Baumgartner opened the scoring for Leipzig but after Celtic battled back to win 3-1, the Austrian attacker was left blown away by Nicolas Kuhn.
Baumgartner told RB Leipzig’s official website, “It was a decent start, we got the goal and then had a good period after that, definitely our best phase of the game.
“We showed that we could cause Celtic problems, a team that played really good football. We saw that we can win the ball back a lot if we’re aggressive in the right moments.
“We had two big chances to go 2-0 up and didn’t take them. We knew of Nicolas Kühn’s strengths, which makes our defending for his equaliser even more frustrating. It was too easy. We’re incredibly disappointed to have lost here tonight.
“We’ve been lacking a few things over the past two games: our speed and weight of passes, and our positioning. Every player wanted the ball tonight for Celtic, that’s something that both them and BVB did better than us. We need to examine our performances and be tough on ourselves.
“Small things are decisive at this level. Our opponents have been better in this regard in our last two games, we can’t deny that.”
Peter Gulacsi ‘extremely disappointed’ at RB Leipzig’s defeat to Celtic
Hungarian international, Gulacsi was at fault for Celtic’s third goal after spilling the ball into the path of Reo Hatate and admitted that Leipzig are ‘extremely disappointed’ at Parkhead defeat.
Gulacsi continued, “We’re extremely disappointed. We had high aspirations for this game. We had the chance to win this match after going 1-0 up. We had opportunities to make it 2-0, but didn’t take them and ended up losing.
“We had periods in which we struggled on the ball and where we were too sloppy. It was a good performance until their first goal. We lost control and our intensity after that, which made life tough.
There are no excuses.
“Lots of moments haven’t gone our way in the last two games. We need to work on making sure these moments do favour us again.”
There is no doubt the Leipzig players thought they could come to Celtic Park and take the three points back to Germany with them.
The reaction from the German media over the Celtic defeat certainly seems to show that as well, especially after they disrespected Hoops hero, Kuhn.
With twelve points left to play for, Leipzig faces a huge task of getting out of the league phase whereas Brendan Rodgers has Celtic firmly in the driving seat and in charge of their own Champions League destiny.
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