Lessons need to be learned

Harry states that the most important lesson is to keep going & strive to excel

Lessons need to be learned; the opinion was universal following the defeat in Dortmund - lessons need to be learned.

For supporters, the lesson to be learned was straightforward. The manager needed to be far more pragmatic and far more defensive. The overriding opinion from fans online was there are two or three nil defeat to a team like Dortmund away was fine, but a 7-1 thumping was not, and the manager needs to get as many defensive players on the park as possible.

The opinion from the ex-pro pundits [granted many of them ex-Celtic pros] was slightly different in that the lesson needed to be learned from players for in-game management and when they can see their teammates are struggling to cope under pressure, longer passes into the opponent's half might be more appropriate. Get Dortmund turned, use the pace we have in our front three and get the ball up quicker and down to the danger areas quicker.

For the manager, the lessons were different again and that the lessons were that the players need to learn how to improve their standard from where they are just now to where the elite players are, and that the only way to do that is to keep playing the same style, but do it better. Don't give the ball away when in possession in a defensive position four times to gift four goals to an elite team.

Of course, no doubt there is an element of truth to all the lessons above. Me, I tend to err more towards the Brendan lesson than the chuck-all-the-stuff-out-of-the-window lesson and go defensive. Highly successful teams, at whatever standard, are coached to play day in, day out in a certain way. To change it dramatically is not easy, if possible at all. That doesn't mean that I believe that we should just play gung-ho - simply that perhaps there is space for two holding midfielders away from home to stop those Dortmund-type runs straight from the midfield and giving some protection to our back four.

Of course, the challenge with this is we don't have an athletic, physical and very mobile number 6 in our squad, and, of course, having a very fit, mobile and athletic number 6 raises further questions about the role of Callum McGregor in the team [a player I adore], and we are unlikely to have one or two of those players by the time we complete this Champions League campaign. We also have challenges looking for a player like this when the majority of our league campaigns are played without needing this player, and played in the fashion that has been so successful so far this season, with Celtic on the front foot pressing opponents.

There is also one other lesson that was touched on by Andrew Smith in his Thursday article that could be something that the moneyman take from Tuesday night.

Celtic are romping the SPL and will no doubt win the title and possibly a treble. With a quality manager like Brendan and the quality players that we have, this would've happened whether we spent £10 million on Engels or not. And whatever the rights and wrongs of the lessons to be learned outlined above, the universal opinion is that Celtic are currently not good enough to finish in the top eight of the Champions League, and if they spent another £20, £30 or £40million in next summer's window, they would not be good enough to finish in the top eight of the Champions League. Therefore, it could be argued we've overspent for the SPL and underspent for the Champions League. And since we can't overspend to the level that would take us to the last eight, there could be an argument that the lesson to be learned from midweek is overspending doesn't achieve in the Champions League and we've overspent for what we need domestically, so let's not spend that way again. In all the potential lessons to be learned from Tuesday night, that, in my opinion, would be the worst one.

Despite the result on Tuesday night, I believe that Celtic are on the cusp of something very special with this manager in the new Champions League format. With the board finally grasping, and having been provided with research that demonstrates, that for clubs of our stature signing €3million players is pissing money up against the wall.

For me, despite Tuesday night (and hopefully this will be illustrated in the rest of this Champions League campaign) is that we are now capable of progressing to the next stage of the Champions League, and that in conjunction with a healthy player trading model with appropriate scouting network [more on that another day] the right acquisitions can lead us to continue to progress in European circles.

Whilst nobody wants to see six and seven goal defeats to elite teams, if Celtic can have a strong home campaign in this season of the Champions League and finish above 24th and qualify for next year's Champions League and once again finish above 24th, then the on sale value for an Engels might be closer to £40million than £30 million. As we saw with the sale of Matt O'Riley at £25 million enabling the purchase of players in the region of £10 million, selling the next player for £40m, instead of £30m, just gives us more scope for buying more quality and incrementally improving the standard of our squad.

Of course, there are lessons to be learned from midweek, but the biggest lesson of all must be to keep going.