Dutch Media Praise Celtic Trio Despite Loss vs Feyenoord

The game between Celtic and Feyenoord was a hard one to assess. The Scottish champions might have lost convincingly by the end of the night but it was pretty much all their own doing.

They gave away a poor first goal right before half-time. Until that point, Feyenoord had created almost nothing and had been restricted to taking hopeful shots from outside the box.

A direct free-kick broke the deadlock. Both the wall as well as Joe Hart could have done a lot better than they did as the strike bounced into the net.

If Celtic had any chance of getting back into the game against Feyenoord after the break, they were over as two of their players were sent off.

Gustaf Lagerbielke and Odin Thiago Holm were both signed in the summer. And they showed their inexperience at this level.

The Swedish centre-back was the first one to be given his marching orders and he gave away a penalty as well, one which Hart thankfully saved. As if going down to ten men had not already left Celtic with enough of a mountain to climb, Holm saw a direct red five minutes later.

Celtic were just hanging on for the last 30 minutes or so including added time. The fact that they conceded just two goals despite playing with nine men for almost a third of the game deserves some credit.

There were three players whom the Dutch media seemed particularly impressed by. A report from de Volkskrant read:

"The trio of Japanese at Celtic, Kyogo Furuhashi, Daizen Maeda and Reo Matata, in particular looked smooth and threatening."

Ultimately, they did not prove to be good enough to find the back of the net against Feyenoord away at De Kuip.

Celtic can take some positives from this game. They were arguably the better team until Feyenoord got their goal. And even when down to nine men, they showed a lot of character to keep the scoreline respectable.

Of course, Celtic have put in plenty of promising performances in Europe recently. It is now time to turn that promise into results. If they don't, they will finish bottom of their group once again this season.