RB Leipzig coach Marco Rose has labelled Joe Hart a ‘great goalkeeper’ following their 2-0 victory away from home at Celtic in the Champions League, speaking to the Bundesliga club’s official website.
It was a game which summed up the entirety of Celtic’s group-stage campaign. A performance in which Ange Postecoglou’s side more than held their own against a top European outfit, trading blows but missing countless chances to land the knockout punch.
Daizen Maeda spurned two glorious opportunities. Kyogo Furuhashi one. Greg Taylor hit the bar when it looked easier to score. Realistically speaking, Celtic could or should have scored three or four. That Leipzig goalkeeper Janis Blaswich returned to Germany with a clean sheet under his belt, then, is testament to the enduring wastefulness that has underpinned Celtic’s entire European campaign.
“It was an important win but a deserved win. We played against a tough opponent in a great stadium,” says Rose, who’s Leipzig side made Celtic pay for their profligacy thanks to late goals from Timo Werner and Emil Forsberg.
“We started the game well but we didn’t really pose much of a threat. At the very beginning we didn’t let Celtic press us but, after 20 minutes, we invited them into the game. We were, however, able to get through the period of pressure.”
Celtic lose 2-0 to RB Leipzig in the Champions League
Leipzig did, of course, create a couple of golden opportunities themselves before Werner’s 75th minute opener. But veteran glovesman Hart bounced back from last week’s howler at the Red Bull Arena, making a couple of impressive one-v-one stops either side of the interval.
“We were dominant in the second half. We had a couple of moments where the luck was on our side,” adds former Dortmund and Monchengladbach boss Rose. “But we came up against a great goalkeeper and a side with lots of quality.”
Celtic are now out of the Champions League picture with two games remaining; blood-and-thunder performances against Real Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk and Leipzig counting for very little. In another world, the Hoops could have had nine points to show for their efforts. Instead, they have just one.
If you give away opportunities at this level – and Celtic will, their up-and-at-em approach leaving them open to counter attacks – you are always going to concede. Just look at the quality of the players who have scored against Celtic in the group-stages; Werner, Forsberg, Vinicius Jr, Luka Modric, Eden Hazard, Andre Silva, Christopher Nkunku and the £50 million-rated Mykhaylo Mudryk.
“There were phases in the game where we were good, and there were phases where they were good. We got off pretty lightly when Celtic were putting us under pressure,” accepts Germany international Werner.
“But we found the breakthroughs we needed at the end.
“It was an insane crowd tonight. In the end, I don’t think our victory was undeserved. Scoring a goal in such an atmosphere is always amazing.”
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