Celtic kicked off their Champions League group-stage campaign with a 5-0 defeat at home to Paris Saint-Germain.
In the wake of Celtic’s 5-0 defeat to Paris Saint-Germain in their Champions League group-stage opener, there were very few things that Brendan Rodgers could be positive about.
However, one performance Rodgers singled out for praise was the display from the Hoops’ young full-back Anthony Ralston, who – like the rest of the Celtic defence – had to try and cope with one of the best forward lines in world football.
Rodgers described the academy graduate’s performance as excellent given the circumstances, as reported by the club’s official website, and the statistics suggest that the 18-year-old certainly did not disgrace himself on an extremely tough night for the Scottish Premiership champions.
| Error Leading To Shot | Blocks | Total Tackles | Tackles Won | Total Clearances | Duels Won | Interceptions | Accurate Passes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthony Ralston | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 26 |
The teenager made no errors that led to shots during the game, and was the only Hoops player to make a block, while also winning one tackle – only Mikael Lustig and Olivier Ntcham won more.
While he was also impressive in terms of the number of interceptions and duels won – only Scott Brown and Patrick Roberts won more in that area – it was the number of clearances that he made that stood out.
Only three players made more than the six that Ralston made across any of the Champions League fixtures that were played on Tuesday night.
And while it will be a night that few associated with Celtic will want to remember, Ralston, as Rodgers suggested, could arguably take some encouragement from his own display.
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