Chris Sutton believes Roy Keane needs to be more realistic with his expectations for Celtic in the Champions League.
Keane was in the ITV studio for Celtic’s 7-0 Champions League group stage defeat away to Barcelona on Tuesday night and he didn’t pull any punches with his analysis of the Hoops’ performance against the Catalan giants.
The former Republic of Ireland captain criticised the club’s mentality, claimed they were the “whipping boys of Europe” and concluded that they should be doing better in Europe.
“They scraped through [to the group stages] and I thought they’d actually won the thing.”
“They’ve got to change the mindset. I’m on about the qualifying games when they were scraping through then celebrating like they’d won the bloody thing.”
They had to go and ask him… https://t.co/9vleiWFRur
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) September 16, 2016
Former Celtic man Chris Sutton has since hit back at Keane in his column for the Daily Record. He feels that because Keane was such a great player, he sets the bar too high for Celtic.
“All points that in isolation you can argue. But all points made with a short sighted and unfair reflection on the current circumstances. The problem with Roy Keane is that he had such high standards during his career that he probably judges everything by them.”
“It’s unfair to do that because he was absolutely brilliant. Celtic would love a team of Roy Keanes but he would cost up to £90 million in this day and age.”
While addressing the mindset point, Sutton had a wee pop at Ipswich Town, a rival of one of his former sides Norwich City. While he agrees with Keane’s point that this aspect of the team has to change, he believes it won’t be a quick fix for Brendan Rodgers.
“Roy Keane talks about the mindset in European away games. Well, he’s managed Ipswich Town so he’ll know all about weak mentality. He’s right in saying it has to change but it takes time and things need to be put into perspective.”
“Celtic were losing games on the road with a far stronger set of players than they have now. Last season they didn’t even win a game in the Europa League. Brendan Rodgers can’t just flick a switch after being in the door for five minutes.”
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