Talk about rubbing it in.
Ronny Deila’s face said it all.
He saw his Celtic side crash to a 2-0 loss night to Malmo in the Champions Play Off, a 4-3 aggregate loss to the Swedish side last night.
The build up to the game was marked by some fairly heavy tension between the sides as the Malmo manager was accused of calling Celtic players ‘pigs’ after last week’s 3-2 game at Parkhead.
Age Hareide claimed his words were mis-interpreted in a very angry rant this week.
So you could imagine that things were pretty tense as the teams took the field on Tuesday night.
Malmo took the lead in the first half but Celtic appeared to be at the end of a bizarre referring decision when a goal was chalked off despite a most obvious handball in the build-up.
Celtic goal disallowed. Oh and the ref missed a handball too. #joebrollyisraging pic.twitter.com/tXnoaDxEVS
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) August 25, 2015
Afterwards Hareide was asked for his thoughts on Celtic crying foul and feeling unfortunate not to have scored.
“Why are you asking me if Celtic were unlucky? Celtic were lucky because it could have been 4-0 to us. Their goalkeeper had two fantastic saves. If they got that goal it would have been 2-1 to us – we would have gone through.”
Tetchy.
Celitc manager Ronny Delia was angry at the officials mistake and claimed it may have cost his side the tie:
“It could have changed it, it is irritating, but I have to look at the overall performance and that wasn’t good enough today.”
“I saw it afterwards, it was not so clear at the time. It was a big mistake, it could have changed the game.”
The result is likely to increase pressure on Delia as Celtic now face into Thursday’s Europa League draw after yet another disappointing exit from Europe’s primary club competition.
The Celtic coach admitted his side were well below their best for the game.
“We were not even close to the level we can be at.”
“We looked very uncomfortable on the ball. We didn’t want the ball and looked very frightened and scared out there. That’s very, very disappointing.”
H/T Guardian
