Celtic 0 Anderlecht 1: Hoops into Europa League as Jozo Simunovic own goal seals fate
Brendan Rodgers will be sweating over the fitness of star forward Moussa Dembele with Champions League exit confirmed
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IT’LL go down as Celtic’s best defeat in years.
A night when the supporters went home happier than they have done after some big wins.
Jozo Simunovic glanced a header past keeper Craig Gordon to score an OG that gave Anderlecht a Champions League victory.
But ultimately the Belgian champions couldn’t win by the three-goal margin they needed.
It’s the last 32 of the Europa League for Brendan Rodgers’ side when the competition starts back in February.
This result was good enough for Celtic to secure third spot in Group B despite the way this game ended.
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And in the cold light of day that’s all that mattered,
But, boy, this wasn’t half a tough night for the nerves and tension.
Celtic played nowhere near their best with Anderlecht likely to have jetted off home last night with a sense of what might have been.
It wasn’t a big Celtic performance and it certainly wasn’t pretty.
How Anderlecht weren’t ahead by half-time heaven only knows.
What a chasing they gave Rodgers’ side for 45 minutes.
Their passing was sensational. Their movement sublime. Their all round technical ability would have been a joy to watch for any neutral.
Celtic just couldn’t get a proper foothold in the game that was passing them by.
Had the Belgians been a couple of goals ahead there wouldn’t have been many home fans here who would have dared complain.
But they weren’t.
For all of their dominance it was still 0-0 at the break on a night when Anderlecht needed to win by three clear goals.
Not that Celtic could take a huge amount of credit for that.
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They didn’t keep possession nearly as well as Rodgers demands with their decision-making from middle to front appalling.
Moussa Dembele was offside time and again.
Behind him Scott Sinclair was getting on the ball often enough but doing absolutely nothing with it.
Had Anderlecht scored early then who knows how things might have panned out.
They had chances too.
Craig Gordon was called into action inside the first two minutes of action with the Scotland No1 reacting brilliantly to keep out a low shot from Sven Kums.
In 17 minutes another wonderfully worked attack saw Adrien Trebel rattle an effort Gordon saved smartly again.
It was a tough watch and Gordon was eventually beaten but in the end it was job done for Rodgers.
The Europa League awaits.