Inside ‘angry’ Celtic dressing room at Easter Road as Hibs poser met with bullish answer

Inside ‘angry’ Celtic dressing room at Easter Road as Hibs poser met with bullish answer

Honest Arne Engels made it clear the champions will never hunt for excuses after a rare slip in the capital

According to Arne Engels, the first-half failure at Hibs infuriated the Celtic players.

And following their unusual title fall, the honest Belgian is adamant that his team will never look for an excuse. Brendan Rodgers’

soldiers had good right to claim extenuating circumstances as the champions left Easter Road humbled. Naturally, the most talked-

about topic after the game was the contentious chalking-off of a late Daizen Maeda goal. It is indisputable that Celtic may have even

won if the Japanese attacker’s brilliant finish had been permitted to stand.

Of course, the fact Rodgers’ men were still chasing the game at that advanced stage was down to the poor opening-period

performance. By the high standards they have set, the champions were miles off it during that wayward first half, yet, once again, an

excuse was right there at their disposal if they wanted it in the shape of Munich.

To most outside of the Celtic dressing room, Rodgers’ team could have passed off their sluggish Edinburgh start given the savage

exertions of their Champions League clash against Bayern in Bavaria beforehand. The energy-sapping 90-minutes in the game’s

highest-octane tournament and the crushing pain of their late exit, never mind the travel.

Engels, however, would have none of it. He described the team’s attitude when they reassembled at the half, facing a 2-0 deficit, and

there was no attempt to deflect blame for the first period.

Naturally, everyone was upset about the team’s performance, he remarked. But nobody was screaming or whatever because we knew

we had a second-half to go and try to grab the equaliser and the winning goal. You witnessed us exerting ourselves to the utmost.

Particularly in the first half, we are unhappy. I don’t think we can ever experience this.

When it was put to Engels that he and his colleagues could be afforded a pass for an off-day or even a weak half, he instantly

responded: “No, never. We don’t have excuses. If we lose or win, we don’t have excuses. I think we are like real sports people and we

always that mentality of trying to do everything really good. That’s a really positive thing of our group.

“You see it also in the second half that we don’t put our heads down or something. We just keep on pushing to try to get that equaliser

and we almost got it. We just need to take the positive points of the second half with us.

I believe that [second-half] is our typical level. We can never experience the first half, but we must also focus on the bright side. In my

opinion, we performed admirably in the second half. As you can see, we were working hard to achieve a goal. We had opportunities in

the second half because we were so motivated. Thus, we must simply continue.

After the half, Celtic did shown resiliency and spirit, but captain Callum McGregor described the game as a “bad day at the office” and a “poor result.”

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