Knackered Liam Scales was asleep before his head hit the pillow after returning late from a draining 7-1 defeat in Dortmund.
But the Celtic defender reckons his team will have no bother raising themselves from Tuesday’s nightmare for their early start in Dingwall. The Hoops haven’t had long to shake off their humiliating 7-1 Champions League defeat and will have to be up with the lark tomorrow as they head to Dingwall to face Don Cowie’s Staggies in a noon kick-off.
But Scales is confident his side will be wide awake to the chance to put their Westfalenstadion walloping behind them. The Republic of Ireland international said: “It was a long night on Tuesday because you’re flying back straight after the game and it was a late kick-off. I didn’t get in until half four. So I was straight to bed! I was exhausted so it didn’t affect my sleep.
“But it’s not easy to put games like that out of your mind. We had a day off on Wednesday because we got back late. It was on my mind on Wednesday but since coming back to train and working on what we’re going to do on the weekend, it’s in the past now and it hasn’t really been on my mind.
“If we can go and put it right on Sunday then we finish this little block of games between the international windows still unbeaten domestically. It’s one win in the Champions League and we’re still in the League Cup. All in all, you’d take that.
“You don’t want to get beaten and beaten well in Europe but we’ve also won a game in Europe and that’s a good start for us. If we can go and win on Sunday, if we reflect on that, it has been a good start.”
Celtic were terrorised in Germany as Dortmund punished a series of individual errors. But Scales insists there’s no way they will be traumatised into changing the style that has seen them sweep aside every one of their domestic opponents this season.
He said: “We have an ethos to go and stick to our guns and that’s right. It’s more exciting. It’s the way we play. It’s what we want to be known for, like a high counter-pressing team.
“But the other night, they were better than us all over the park and they picked us apart. That shouldn’t scare us into completely changing what we do.
“It would be worse if we change what we do than it would be if we can fix a few things and get better. Because we already are good at pressing and counter-pressing.
“But if we can get a little bit better then it’s better than completely reverting to being defensive, which doesn’t really suit the squad we have. Is it about tweaking the individual things rather than scrapping the plan all together? Exactly, yes.
“Tweaking little bits and pieces to make us better. We wanted to be aggressive. We didn’t want to go there, sit in and hope for the best.
“We could have done that and we could have lost the game 1-0 or 2-0 maybe. Obviously, it’s not an embarrassing result but it’s not particularly good to watch.
“We wanted to go and play the way we play against everyone. That’s the mentality we have. Dortmund were a top side and they picked us apart. They were clinical and really ruthless.
“Whenever they turned over the ball, they seemed to have a lot of attacking runs and it was difficult to defend against. That’s really what killed us. I think a few of the goals were very avoidable.
“There were little errors that maybe we haven’t been making. It was just one of those nights where everything seemed to go in. But now we have a game on the weekend that’s big for us so we don’t have time to dwell on it.”