Matt O'Riley insists Celtic must learn fast to get ruthless and go for the Champions League kill.
The Parkhead have been taught brutal lessons so far in Group F as they sit bottom of the section at the halfway mark. Celtic’s situation has not been helped by injuries to key figures with huge concerns now surrounding Callum McGregor. The skipper had to go off during Wednesday’s 3-1 defeat to RB Leipzig with the club anxiously awaiting news from scans and tests on the seriousness of his knee injury to determine an exact period of absence for their influential and inspirational captain.
Defenders Cameron Carter-Vickers and Carl Starfelt have also been absent, but boss Ange Postecoglou was still disappointed in Germany that his team appeared to start backward steps after fighting back to level the game at 1-1, insisting they turned "negative" with their passing. Postecoglou has urged his team to maintain a positive mindset throughout games and O’Riley agrees that the educational period has taught them it’s time to stay bold and get clinical.
Asked about the manager’s viewpoint, he said: “I understand what you’re saying. Maybe we played backwards at times when we should’ve played forwards. Especially when it was 1-1 and we had a bit of momentum. There were times when we probably could’ve gone for the kill and we didn’t.
“We probably just have to learn. If you look at quite a lot of our team, there are still a lot of young players out there who haven’t had that much experience in terms of managing games. So it’s probably that. Again, there’s a lot to learn, but we’ve to learn quickly because there’s only three games left.”
Celtic have paid the price in all three of their Group F games so far by giving up chances at the back and not punishing opponents in attack O’Riley says that it is becoming a concerning pattern as he continued: “It is and it needs to change.
“We know what we need to do to win the games. That’s the main thing. And now we just need to do it. We’re disappointed. I think we had some good chances, especially in the first half and we’ve realised now that if we don’t take those chances we’re going to get punished at this level.
“It was similar against Real Madrid and Shakhtar, we had chances in certain periods of the game. It was the same against Leipzig. To be honest, that was the difference. It just comes down to being more ruthless.”
Despite the disappointment of falling to the foot of the section and the worries over an injury list which is beginning to grow, Celtic are still determined they can recover the situation in the section and manage to progress. Back-to-back home wins over RB Leipzig on Tuesday and Shakhtar at the end of this month would swing the door open for them again ahead of their final Group F encounter against Real in the Bernabeu.
O’Riley insists the desire and belief remains and said: “There is the confidence. We just need to win our next two home games and see where it puts us. We’ll go from there, really. It’s still a great chance.”
