Celtic Faces Defeat as Ferencvaros Exploit Defensive Weakness in Europa League
Celtic Park has seen some bruising European nights. This was another one to add to the list.
Four days after an Old Firm collapse, Martin O'Neill’s side were taken apart 3-1 at home by Ferencvaros, their Europa League campaign unravelling on opening night under the glare – and then the fury – of their own support.
The pattern is becoming painfully familiar. Bright start. Cheap goals conceded. Chasing a game they should never have been behind in.
Bright beginning, brutal reality
For 20 minutes, Celtic looked like a team trying to make amends.
James Forrest, back on the left and playing with a freedom that belied his years, repeatedly drove at Ferencvaros. On eight minutes he picked out Camilo Duran with a teasing cross, only for the forward to take an extra touch and poke wide. It felt like the platform O’Neill had demanded after the League Cup loss to Rangers.
Then Celtic’s defence did what it has done too often this season.
Kieran Tierney failed to deal with a routine cross, the ball broke to Bamidele Yusuf, and his shot clipped Liam Scales on the way into the net. Twenty minutes gone, 1-0 Ferencvaros, and another goal Celtic had effectively scored for their opponents.
Viljami Sinisalo, back in goal, had to prevent further damage soon after, getting down sharply to push Daniel Arzani’s effort wide after the Australian skipped past Cameron Carter-Vickers. At the other end, Haissem Hassan was inches away from converting another Forrest delivery before Callum McGregor saw a strike deflected just past the post.
Celtic were still carrying a threat. They just couldn’t trust what was behind them.
Hope, then chaos before half-time
The pressure eventually told. Just before the break, Tierney atoned in part for his earlier error, swinging in a cross that Mika Baur met with a ruthless finish. Celtic Park erupted. Level at 1-1 on 44 minutes, it felt like a turning point.
It wasn’t. It was a trapdoor.
Straight from the restart, Celtic imploded again. Yusuf bullied Tierney, McGregor was slow to react to the loose ball, and Kristoffer Zachariassen was allowed to flick beyond Sinisalo. From elation to disbelief in the space of two minutes.
O’Neill had promised after Hampden that his team would “get things right”. The first 45 minutes here suggested the message had not landed at the back.
Arzani strikes, Celtic crumble
Any hope of a second-half response lasted barely two minutes.
Celtic surrendered possession cheaply in their own half, Colby Donovan – fresh from his first Scotland call-up this week – was caught out, and Arzani pounced. One touch, then a vicious strike into the top corner. 47 minutes played, 3-1 Ferencvaros, and Celtic’s defensive structure in pieces.
From there, the Hungarians did not need to over-commit. They sat, waited, and watched Celtic run into their own anxiety.
Duran flashed a dangerous ball across goal that Kasper Hogh just failed to reach. Benjamin Nygren curled narrowly wide. Sebastian Tounekti forced Adam Varga into a strong save before Nygren, spotting the goalkeeper off his line, sent an ambitious effort over the bar.
Celtic created enough to make the scoreline look different. They never looked like a side who truly believed they could drag it back.
By the final whistle, those who stayed made their feelings known. The boos were loud, prolonged, and pointed.
Big signings quiet, big questions loud
O’Neill had reacted to the Old Firm defeat with four changes. The shake-up did little to steady anything.
The same soft concessions. The same hesitancy in possession. The same lack of authority in the big moments.
The summer’s attacking recruits, Duran and Hogh, again failed to stamp themselves on a major occasion. For a support that watched this club sweep to a league and cup double only months ago, that’s not just disappointing – it’s alarming.
O’Neill has admitted he is still searching for his best starting XI. The games, though, are arriving faster than the solutions. Seven group fixtures to salvage this European campaign; one enormous league fixture to navigate before the international break.
O’Neill: “A European lesson”
“We're naturally disappointed getting beaten,” O’Neill said afterwards. “It's not the start we wanted. We have seven games in which to try and get some points on the board. Really need to concentrate now on Sunday [against Rangers].”
He called it “a European lesson… in many aspects” and insisted his side would “get ourselves together” and “re-energise”.
His frustration with Celtic’s use of the ball was clear. “When we have decent possession of the ball, just don't give it away,” he said, while stressing the need to take “a few risks… in the proper areas of the field.”
On the full-time boos, he was unmoved. “I've been here 25 years ago where the crowd can react like that, so it's genuinely nothing new to me,” he noted, pointing to the irritation when Celtic turned forward momentum into sideways and backward passing. “That's something that we'll have to try and iron out.”
Derby looming, pressure rising
The league table offers a strange kind of protection. Whatever happens on Sunday, Celtic will go into the international break still top of the Premiership.
That won’t shield anyone from the mood if this week ends with two Old Firm defeats and a European loss in the space of eight days.
Celtic’s problems are no longer isolated incidents. They’re a pattern. And with Rangers arriving at Celtic Park next, how long before that pattern becomes a full-blown crisis for Martin O’Neill?
