Another European debacle and more talk of lessons. But when will Celtic learn them?

There’s a lot to unpack this morning, and I’m sure there will be a lot more to come from me before the day is out. But regular readers will know I have no interest in denying reality or objective fact and there’s no spinning that and it would be futile and stupid even to try.

From the moment of the first goal the writing was on the wall; we’ve seen this too much to be surprised in the slightest by what the next 86 minutes produced. Concede early in these games and you are up against it. To our credit we score almost at once. To our mortification we conceded just as rapidly. The balloon burst right there.

I have written these articles before in the aftermath of horror performances. I did it after Real Madrid similarly dismantled us some years back and I was perfectly relaxed about the result because there I thought we had more pressing things to do here at home. I also know, because I don’t delude myself, that we are to the Real Madrid’s of this world what the St Johnstone’s are to us.

This is why I rage against idiots like Ewan Murray who excoriate us for having the gall to be richer than our domestic opposition whilst virtually demanding that we do better against the super clubs. It’s utter hypocrisy and I have not the least interest in listening to any such commentary in the days and weeks to come.

But we are seriously deficient at this level and I listened to Rodgers with no enthusiasm at all as he talked about learning lessons and all the usual rubbish we have listened to before and before and before. When asked if we should maybe have considered being more pragmatic in our outlook he refused to countenance it.

So what exactly has he learned here? What lessons has he taken from it? Because what I took from that deplorable first half was how atrocious our plan had been … and he doesn’t intend to change it which means that if you’ve got tickets for Atalanta that unless you have a burning desire to see Bergamo that you’re well advised to get out of it if you still can because we’re heading for a similar outcome.

I am not blaming Rodgers alone here. We all know that he’s still working with some substandard stuff for this level. We all knew that it was lunacy to go into this Champions League campaign with Taylor and Scales in the side.

As good as they’ve both been against our domestic opposition, we know full well that neither is cut out for this level against those sort of players, and we shouldn’t be shocked that they’ve proved it again.

It’s like the years long circular debate about Mikey Johnston; even after the jury was in, the verdict was read out and the jail wagon was heading for the prison yard people would still try and sell you on the idea that he deserved another shot in the side although we all knew the truth, but somehow wanted to keep denying it.

Left back was not an important position for the summer; it was a critical one. Critical. There is no excuse for not bringing in quality, a first team ready replacement. Not a kid from Spain’s second tier to provide him with competition but someone who could step in and take his place. I refuse to believe there aren’t dozens of players out there better suited to this level than Taylor and who fall within our price bracket.

I thought the signing of a Barcelona academy player on loan, whose highest level of football was the Spanish second tier, was an embarrassment considering how long this has been a priority; I wrote that and was told to stop being ridiculous. And what did I say to those who argued that he was a superstar the Barcelona fans wanted in their line-up? I’ll judge it on what the manager thinks of that.

And Greg Taylor started last night. Because he’s still the best left back at the club, he’s still going to be the go-to-guy for the manager. Which says it all, and goes at least some way towards explaining that absolute shit-show we watched last night.

Some way, but not all the way. We have systemic problems. These aren’t issues about individual players or the manager’s tactical plan. These are deep rooted and the longer we ignore them the harder they are to fix. We’re not doing some things well and there are other things we just aren’t doing at all. That’s a longer piece than this.

But this is the thing; nothing actually changed last night. The realists amongst us knew we weren’t going to go to Dortmund and win, so the only thing up for grabs was whether we could do enough to get a point and if not the only variable would be the margin of defeat. Someone asked me the other day what I thought we’d see in this game and I said it would either be a triumph or a disaster; nothing in between.

When we conceded early I knew what it was going to be.

But I said 15 points in this Group and this game wasn’t one of the points I was counting on and neither are those in Italy or in Birmingham although of the three big games I will be appalled if we don’t put up more of a fight against Villa than we did here. But this was never going to be about anything other than the games at home, and that match in Zagreb and they are as winnable as they were before.

This is a sore one. I would say every weakness was exposed if only they needed to be. They didn’t. They were simply highlighted all over again; we knew what the problems were and we’ve not fixed them, and we’re paying for it.

Things need to change at a deeper and more fundamental level at Celtic; too many people inside our walls think they are the lords of all creation and nights like tonight should be mortifying for them, and instructive at the same time. Smarter men might question whether they’ve got some responsibility here, and propel the club towards thinking more strategically about this stuff. Not these people.

But as I said, there’s no sugar coating how dire that was. It was horrendous and greatly concerning for any number of reasons. Foremost though is that both the tune and the words are all too familiar; lessons will be learned. How many of these special seminars do we have to go through before we actually do learn?