KIERAN TIERNEY refused to look for any excuses for the reasons an under-strength Celtic lost in Germany to RB Leipzig.
Brendan Rodgers was without several key players for the game including captain Scott Brown, who the 21-year-old deputised for in the 2-0 defeat.
That’s now 44 group games Celtic have played in European football since 2001 and they have won just twice. It's a dismal record.
And while Tierney could have blamed the absence of Tom Rogic and James Forrest among others on this latest difficult evening, he wasn’t at all interested in going down that road.
He said: “We had players missing but there are no excuses. The team that was out there had quality in every position. It’s not that it was a second team although it wasn’t obviously full strength.
“The 10/15 minutes when we switched off really cost us. And back in Glasgow, we’ll need to make less errors in the game.
“At this level, there are going to be mistakes. It’s just that they took their chances well tonight.”
It was a familiar story. Celtic were in the game and playing some good football, but lost concentration and then a second goal within a couple of minutes.
Tierney admitted: “That’s frustrating. Whether I’m captain or not, it’s frustrating for everybody. It’s something you want to get out of your game at this level. It’s something we’ll work on again.
“We can’t think about it too much right now as we’ve got a massive game on Sunday against Hearts. It’s hard because at this level you can’t drop your levels.
"When the first goal went in it was disappointing because up until that point we’d done well. Then we didn’t really play our way four five minutes and they punished us.
2When it’s 1-0 it’s hard but then it goes to two it’s very difficult to get back into it. At half time we knew we’d need to chase it. We didn’t do that great but we coped well defensively.
“We changed the formation near the end and had a chance or two. We could have nicked a goal which would have made it interesting but it was always going to be hard. They are a good team as well and you need to remember that.”
Leipzig are strong favourite to finish at least second. Celtic need to get back to the days when Parkhead was one of the most difficult stadiums in Europe for even the best teams to get a win.
Tierney said: “They were very good. We know it’s going to be a tough game in a couple of weeks’ time. There will be a big crowd behind us as well which is always great. It’s another European night at Celtic Park and we know the crowd will be right behind us.
“I’d like to thank every single one of them who came to Germany and made noise for 90 minutes no matter the score and how we were playing.”
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