Celtic Demonstrates Resilience in European Campaign

Former Celtic midfielder Scott Allan remarked that the most significant positive aspect his old club can derive from their impressive start to the season is “how quickly they are learning from setbacks.” He also suggested that Celtic supporters must be eagerly anticipating every upcoming match. After an initial Champions League victory against Slovan Bratislava, a substantial 7-1 defeat inflicted by Borussia Dortmund threatened to undermine their European campaign. However, Brendan Rodgers’ squad responded by securing a resilient draw away to Atalanta and achieving a comeback triumph on Tuesday against RB Leipzig. On the BBC’s Scottish Football Podcast, Allan quoted Rodgers, saying, “Rodgers said they would learn.” He elaborated on their performance against Atalanta: “They go away to Atalanta, they put in a different type of performance. They were still brave on the ball and there were tweaks to how Celtic pressed Atalanta, but they came away with a valuable point.” Regarding the RB Leipzig match, he added, “Then you take the RB Leipzig game, it was immense. You could go through so many players, Nicolas Kuhn, Callum McGregor, but the biggest thing for me is how quickly they’re learning from the setbacks.” Allan praised the influence of his former teammate McGregor in Celtic’s midfield on Tuesday, although German winger Kuhn was identified as the standout performer at Parkhead. Following a challenging initial period in Glasgow, Kuhn has continued his strong start to the season by scoring a brace against Leipzig and subsequently playing a crucial role in Reo Hatate’s second-half goal. Discussing the forward’s rapid ascent at Celtic, Allan commented: “When he first came in he was maybe a victim of the success of other players who have come in and hit the ground running – Kyogo Furuhashi, Daizen Maeda and Jota. Sometimes in this city people can be really impatient with players if they don’t get off to a flyer, but he had a good pre-season and those goal contributions… it really is incredible stuff from Kuhn.”