Celtic Diary Thursday 20 August: Even Berget Looked Shocked

The picture above shows the immediate reaction of former Celt Jo Inge Berget after he scored the second goal for Malmo as they went down 3-2 to Celtic last night in Glasgow.

He wasn’t the only one having difficulty in coming to terms with the fact that his goals, both very well taken, give Malmo hope of winning a tie that looked to be over before most fans had settled in for the game.

Celts were two up through Leigh Griffiths and Nir Biton within twelve minutes-it might have been ten but I hadn’t come down from the ceiling to check- an were threatening to make not only the second leg a formality, but the second half as well.

Pace , creativity, strength and passion were all there and Malmo didn’t know what had hit them.

Unfortunately, for long periods in the second half, Celtic seemed to have forgotten what had hit Malmo as well, and Berget scored a terrific volley from where one of our defenders should have been, and the Swedes suddenly grew about six inches each.

But, Leigh Griffiths scored a typical strikers header when he barged a defender to loop the ball over the keeper, and the natural sense of order was restored.

For a minute or two. A nervy Celtic seemed to settle for this, and ceded more possession than they ought to have, and were unable to step back up to the dizzy heights of what had been one of the best performances of the Deila era thus far.

With the referee awarding five minutes of injury time, and Stefan Johansen opting to argue with a forward instead of concentrating on the game, and the mood spreading, only Nir biton and virgil van dijk seemed bothered about clearing the ball. Unhappily, they bumped into each other, the ball broke to Berget, who although we remember him as shite, and the players probably do as well, should at least have had someone near him.

Malmo celebrated like they’d won the Cup, and bizarrely Celtic fans, although ahead in the tie and having proved they are a vastly superior side, felt like we’d just been beaten.

Just to remind you.

Celtic 3, Malmo 2.

Okay, they have a couple of away goals, and only need to score one without reply to go through, but another way of putting it is Celtic simply need to avoid defeat in Sweden to progress.

Something which our away form in qualifiers suggests we are more than capable of. Especially with Leigh Griffiths on fire at the moment.

Malmo manager Age Hareide was a little relieved at full time, but generously helped Ronny Deila to prepare his team talk for the second leg;

“It was a terrible start for us, losing two goals so early in the game. I don’t know what happened, but credit to the boys for getting back in the game. “At 2-1, we had control of the match and Celtic looked tired. ”  

Maybe bored rather than tired.

“We saw against Inverness Caley Thistle on Saturday that they do not have the legs for 90 minutes.

“Then we made silly mistakes and you cannot do that at this level. But credit to the boys they worked their way back into the game and made it 3-2.” 

Then their keeper, Johan Wiland,  decided to edit the speech, and add a little more;

“They are pigs, all of them, that’s the way it is, You just have to try to stay cool and do what we have to do on the pitch. Leigh Griffiths, well, I don’t know what to say, he behaved like a child, tugging shirts all the time.” 

 “There were some players who talked a lot. You probably know who I mean. They have a captain [Scott Brown] and a few others who like to talk. But that’s the way it is at this level. One player who came on [Nadir Ciftci] was not particularly nice. The first thing he wanted to do when he came on was to talk. He had more focus on that than his performance. And I don’t think it was to their advantage that they were running around focusing on other things.”  

There there, now, you’ll be alright.

Celtics players should take more care in the return, and not hurt this delicate little flower. No tugging his shirt, no swearing, and above all no rough stuff, as it would be terrible if one of them should mistime a jump while attacking from a corner and put both knees into his kidneys.

Hang on, I’ve seen this film, where a manager gets all excited after a one goal defeat at Celtic Park. Anyone else remember it  ?

The phrase ”men against boys” doesn’t exactly spring to mind but, in the business of one football manager out-witting and mildly ridiculing another, Martin O’Neill offered Graeme Souness the proverbial knee in the crotch at Ewood Park last night. Deservedly, and with no little panache, Celtic went through to the third round of the UEFA Cup after this alleged Battle of Britain in a noisy corner of Lancashire.

In the end it proved no battle, and nor were there any grudges. Nor, ultimately, was there much bravado afterwards from Souness, a man who had disparaged Celtic’s play in the first leg in Glasgow two weeks ago, but who last night was suddenly doing a decent impression of a peacock whose strut and feathers had been brutally hacked. A chastened Souness at least got one thing right: Blackburn can now concentrate on the Premiership.

Ronny Deila was a little peturbed at how things turned out. As you can imagine;

 “Of course we can beat Malmo away, that’s for sure. They have to attack us and that can suit us.

“It doesn’t scare me. We know they are a good team but we are ahead by one goal. We were also ahead when we played Qarabag and defended well over there.

“Of course you get disappointed when you concede a goal in the last second but it happened and we have to look at it overall

“We are one goal ahead and they have to beat us in Malmo. It could be a better result but it is still an okay result. 

“We played well in the first half, especially at the start of the game when we were all over them. But it was disappointing in the end.” 

“They scored with the two chances they had but we have to see how it is after two legs. They have to beat us in Malmo.

“We are very irritated with the last thing that happened in the game but we have to move on and know we are ahead.

“We haven’t conceded goals from set plays this season, that’s one of first. We had two players going for same challenge and the ball bounced down to their player.

“But we scored three goals as well and that’s positive. We are ahead before the second game. I think we had good control of the game and had good chances.

“I’m very satisfied with that. We now have to produce it in Malmo.”  

So, what can we take from last nights game, apart from a one goal lead ?

James Forrest was outstanding. Leigh Griffiths scored twice. Stuart Armstrong , and if you saw his face during Zadok the Priest you wouldn’t be surprised, was relishing every minute of the occasion, and put in an excellent shift.

The first half was total football at its best. Maybe Celtic can’t keep that pace up, not yet anyway, but they really need to kill teams off when they are in that form, because as last night showed, and the recent league games as well, it’s virtually impossible to lift yourelf back to that level if things start to go a little awry.

Perhaps thats what lead to the nerves, and maybe thats why concentration wasn’t as high as it should have been. One thing that did occur to me was it’s all very well having a big crowd roaring you on, but it’s quite another to ignore it, sit back and feel content with what you have done so far.

Theres a saying i heard somewhere, about never being able to have too much money, because if thats how you feel, you’ve obviously never had too little.

In the same way, you can never score enough goals, and the next time we go a couple ahead, we should remember that.

There is a pattern emerging, Celtic , unusually if you know the history, seem to have forgotten that a game is ninety minutes long, and need to keep focused for that length of time.

Otherwise, it will bite you in the arse.

Like the Diary author who compared Berget to a donkey, and put pictures of babies laughing when Kilmarnock threatene to get a result at Rugby Park.

From now on every team and every player we face is a world beater.

Well, nearly every team.

Some people are already making plans for the return game…

Lets have a caption competition. This was the post match interview last night.

Or was it ?