Celtic played 210 minutes of football against a team ranked 315th in Europe without scoring, as their Champions League hopes ended bringing even more fan frustration.
The Hoops support chanted ‘sack the board’ after a goalless first leg in Glasgow and the 300 who made the arduous 7,000-mile round trip to Kazakhstan will be wondering why they bothered.
It is not the first time Celtic have approached a crucial European qualifier without properly strengthening, but was that the reason for one of their most dismal displays as they dropped into the Europa League?
Should they have been good enough to win?
Celtic’s James Forrest has the only shot on target in the first half
Celtic kicked off on Tuesday in Kazakhstan and finished playing on Wednesday. It could be argued they could still be playing and would not have scored a goal.
They were poor at Parkhead in the first leg and awful in Almaty as they failed to trouble a side ranked 315th in Europe. That’s 125 places below Aberdeen and 75 under St Mirren – both teams they have managed to beat this season.
Celtic’s Arne Engels (L) consoles Daizen Maeda after his penalty miss
Adam Idah started last week’s fixture and failed to impress but dropping him was not the answer either.
The starting front three of James Forrest, Daizen Maeda and Hyun-Jun Yang should have been enough, but they offered little – Forrest had a first-half header saved and Maeda missed a golden opportunity to secure victory before extra-time, before missing the decisive penalty.
Hopeful long balls, heavy touches and backwards passes showed a Celtic team lacking in belief.
Yes, they should have probably had enough to get past Kairat Almaty, but that will not stop the fan outrage at the board’s failure to spend money to strengthen the team this summer.
Did the transfer gamble cost Celtic?
Celtic fans were heard chanting against the club’s board, including Peter Lawwell (L) and Michael Nicholson (R) during the first leg
Players, manager, board. They are in part to blame for one of the club’s biggest failings, but the gamble to wait before strengthening has now been shown to be a terrible decision.
The new Champions League qualification would bring a huge financial boost, but Celtic are a club with £100m in the bank already which begs the question, why was some of that not invested in the team before this fixture?
Kyogo Furuhashi and Nicolas Kuhn have left, Jota is injured, but for some reason they were not replaced before a massive tie for the club.
There will be new additions before Monday’s transfer deadline, but they should have arrived sooner. Those on the target list may have to change too, without that lure of the Champions League.
Where do Celtic need to strengthen?
Summer signing Benjamin Nygren started in Kazakhstan
It is in the attacking areas that Celtic are most lacking as they aim to qualify for Europe’s elite competition again.
Winger Kuhn left for Como earlier this month, and options have been limited after talisman Kyogo left in January.
Jota is expected to miss a large spell of this campaign, meaning another injury to Maeda or Forrest currently leaves Yang as Rodgers’ back-up option.
Adam Idah (L) started on the bench in Kazakhstan
They also need a striker. Idah has yet to score this season. Callum Osmand has been brought in as one for the future, meaning Jonny Kenny and new signing Shin Yamada are his back-up options for that position.
Only two summer signings – Kieran Tierney and Benjamin Nygren – featured in Kazakhstan and the anticipated arrivals of Antwerp winger Michel-Ange Balikwisha and Boca Juniors left-back Marcelo Saracchi will come in the wake of major fan
anger.
Could Rodgers leave?
Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers on their Champions League play-off defeat to Kairat Almaty, the future and what it could mean for transfers
Rodgers has said there’s “no chance” he will walk away from Celtic before the end of his current deal, but any chance of him staying longer may have vanished with their Champions League dreams.
The manager wanted to take Celtic to the next level, but instead he took them into a Champions League play-off without reinforcements and he could argue they have gone backwards instead.
When asked if it felt like a self-inflicted blow because key players had not been replaced, Rodgers said: “It’s very frustrating. We all know where we want to get to. We showed last year, the strides that I felt we took. But you have to
build on that.
Celtic fans once again protested against the board on Saturday
“The last thing you want to do in football is manufacture your own stress. That’s what you don’t want to be doing.
“But all we can do now is look at where we’re at as a football club and decide what way we want to go.
“But we can still have a very good season.
“We’ll see what the remaining days in the window bring, and then we’ve got a really big game at the weekend (against Rangers).”
What are the impacts of Celtic’s Champions League exit?
Sky Sports reporter Gordon Duncan discusses the impact of Celtic’s Champions League loss to Kairat, costing the club £40m
Sky Sports News reporter Gordon Duncan:
“I think it’s hugely damaging on a number of fronts.
“First of all, you’ve got the obvious financial blow to the club upwards of £40m, the revamped Champions League format is worth an awful lot of money, particularly to clubs like Celtic.
“That’s the stuff that you can measure. The other side of it might be even more important, just the mood around the club, the mood amongst the fans, the mood towards the club, towards the board, constant accusations that the club hasn’t done enough.
“The board haven’t backed Brendan Rodgers enough, put Celtic into the Champions League qualifiers with a squad that was under-prepared, a squad that has been weakened significantly since last season.
“The Celtic fans are waking up with a lot of questions and on to Sunday, things have the potential to get much worse.
“If you’re an optimist, they’ll hope that things can get better but that game against Rangers brings everything into sharper focus as well.”
How important is Sunday’s Old Firm clash?
Sunday 31st August 11:00am
Kick off 12:00pm
There is no doubt this exit will hurt for a while, but after making the gruelling trip back, they need to be ready for Sunday’s Old Firm showdown against Rangers.
Winning the league will always be the priority and victory at Ibrox, live on Sky Sports, would see them move NINE points ahead of their fiercest rivals after just four games.
Celtic may have stormed to the Premiership title last season, but their record against Rangers was far from impressive. After a 3-0 win in the first game, they lost home and away in the league before drawing the final meeting.
Victory at Ibrox would give them bragging rights and a huge points gap, but will that be enough to ease some of the fan frustration? That’s Doubtful.
What’s the fans’ view?
Celtic podcaster Paul John Dykes analyses the club’s dismal showing against Kairat Almaty as they lost their Champions League play off on penalties.
Celtic podcaster Paul John Dykes believes the board have to shoulder a lot of the blame for the latest European failure:
“We’ve played nine qualifiers, seven times we failed to get through the qualifying stage and that’s over a period of 12 years.
“It spans four different managers who have all come out and spoken about how long it takes us to get deals done.
“Kairat beat us over two legs without too much issue. We had a couple of chances, but we were so easy to play against.
“We also had a bad end to the season and some of the issues that are coming home to us now, we actually saw them last season.
Mark Wilson reacts to Celtic’s Champions League play-off defeat to Kairat, who are ranked 315th in Europe.
“We had an issue at left-back and we now have Kieran Tierney back. We only had one left-back in the Champions League squad, yet we had six centre-halves.
“There’s a real imbalance at the moment. Kieran Tierney can’t play 90 minutes.
“From the turn of the year, our form has dropped off a cliff. We’ve struggled against Rangers.
“When you speak to the club, they do say get the medals on the table, 42 trophies since the turn of the century, eight doubles, all the trebles, the quadruple treble.
“But at the end of the day, we’re not progressing in Europe and we have regressed massively this season.”
This news was originally published on this post .
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