Celtic emerged from Shakthar’s temporary home of Warsaw in Poland with a fine point on Wednesday but it could and should have been a lot more.
Relentless early pressing resulted in Reo Hatate rolling it across goal for what would have been a tap-in for Kyogo only for the despairing leg of Bondarenko to put it in any way after ten minutes.
It was just deserts after a dominant opening period where Kyogo nearly scored in the opening 60 seconds.
Other chances came and went before Celtic’s achilles heel on the content of poor defending kicked in again and flying machine Mykhailo Mudryk raced in to equalise for the ‘hosts’ just before the half-hour mark.
Celtic toiled thereafter and former player Marian Shved had the ball in the net not long after but an offside and the ball being out of play in the build-up thankfully put paid to that narrative taking root.
We regrouped in the second half and totally dominated but just couldn’t find the decisive goal.
56% possession and 16 shots on goals to their five tells its own story and Jota led the Shakthar defence a merry dance a few times but couldn’t apply s finish.
Giorgos Giakoumakis looked like he was about to turn and finish spectacularly in the final five mins but his shot whistled inches over the bar.
Alas, it was not meant to be but on this form, we’ll fancy our chances in the games to come against Leipzig and the home tie against Shakthar.
....Always A Tim! 