Kasper Schmeichel took control and launched an onfield inquest after Celtic fell behind to Club Brugge in disastrous circumstances.
Having started well, the Belgians were gifted the opening goal at Parkhead by Cameron Carter-Vickers, who played a blind pass back to the Dane, expecting him to be between his sticks. But he’d rushed out to try and offer an angle to the under pressure Nicolas Kuhn. The German was forced into playing to Vickers, and his lack of awareness as to where his keeper was lead to him passing the ball into an empty net.
Schmeichel immediately screamed at skipper Callum McGregor to gather the troops and launched into what seemed to be a combination of a debrief and a pep talk in order to get Brendan Rodgers’ team going after a sluggish start to their latest Champions League battle. And predecessor Joe Hart reckons he knows exactly what message his old Man City pal was getting across.
“Oh people who love the modern game will be licking their lips at moments like this,” he said on TNT Sports. “But it happens. The amount of times that you manage to recycle the ball, play through the lines and score beautiful goals, unfortunately there’s going to be moments like this.
“But the message here, it’s Schmeichel who called that meeting. He told Callum McGregor to ‘get everyone in here now. I need people showing for the ball. It’s not good enough, it’s now how we play. It’s not how we are as a team.’
“That’s the message he’s giving. It will not be get the ball down, whack it and we’ll get in behind them. No, we play football and we show for each other. we give our teammates options. Nicolas Kuhn didn’t have any options and the ripple effect was Carter-Vickers under pressure. Kasper Schmeichel is probably trying to do too much to show for Kuhn. He’s out of the goal, Carter-Vickers didn’t check and they’re 1-0 down.