Barcelona 7—Celtic 0.

Where's the ba? In the net...

I must admit I’d a fiver on Celtic to win at 33/1. You know it’s not going to happen, but think it might. And at those odds, you can’t really lose, although you did. We all know how it works. Barcelona need to have an off day as they did on Saturday against a newly promoted team. The Celtic goalkeeper has got to have the game of his life, as David Marshal once did, or even Frazer Foster.  Here De Vries came in to replace Craig Gordon, the latter whom had taken to making a few howlers, most notably bumping into Janko in the Champions-League qualifier. De Vries has been notable by his absence. Since replacing Craig Gordon I can’t remember him making a save. Here he was at it again. Dreadful. Gamboa replaced Janko, but it’s difficult to make an assessment of him. He didn’t seem to touch the ball. Lustig was often in the wrong place at the wrong time and never made a tackle. You can add the other centre-halfs to that list Shevchenko and Toure. The shining light in Celtic’s performances last season and this has been Kieran Tierney. His worst performance came in Israel, but this was topped last night. A toss-up between De Vries and Tierney to determine who the worst Celtic player was, but Scott Brown our captain would probably have lost that as well.

                Of the midfield four, Scott Brown was Celtic’s captain and our man of the match because i) he tackled and ii) he made two passes in a row to his teammates. Bitton was the straw man from the Wizard of Oz and could have been taken off at any time. Sinclair, who up until now, has that magic touch and scored in every game, lost his touch here. Roberts at least tried to get forward, taking people on, but losing the ball.

                Dembele missed a penalty that funnily enough would have put us 1-1. Hard to believe that now. When Barcelona are winding down and they bring on Ineista, well that just about says it all. Celtic weren’t expected to win, but they weren’t expected to capitulate in this way. But this game is a freebie. We expected nothing from it and took nothing. A reality check in the same way that the result in Israel was also a reality check. Much work needs to be done, but even now, after the biggest hammering I’ve ever seen Celtic take, we’re finally going in the right direction.