It was an evening that promised so much and provided so little, as Celtic lost 2-1 at Parkhead against Lazio. Maurizio Sarri’s side were not great by any stretch of the imagination and the Hoops were undone by their own mistakes at the back. Going forward, they perhaps could have done more and had a late Luis Palma goal cancelled out by VAR for offside.
It was a good performance even if it ended in defeat. But how many times have we heard that before?
The truth is, if Celtic want to make any sort of mark at this level, they will need to win games like these. And they will have to take something from matches even when they are not at their best. This was arguably their easiest fixture of the group and they managed to grab defeat from the jaws of victory, once again.
A number of Celtic players put in decent performances on the evening but in vain. There was one who was heavily criticised for his display though.
Celtic player criticised for performance against Lazio
Yang Hyun-jun was handed the start by Brendan Rodgers against Lazio. While he started brightly, the South Korean youngster faded away quickly.
Soon, mistakes started to creep into his game and he did not do much of not while he was on the pitch. He was replaced by Palma in the 62nd minute and the Honduran international might not have been perfect, but he brought a lot more to Celtic’s game.
This will once again lead to questions about the club’s transfer policy. They stuck to signing youngsters in the summer despite knowing that they had a Champions League group-stage campaign coming up. Are players like Yang ready to be starting in Europe’s elite competition? It certainly does not feel like so to be honest.