Celtic need Champions League striker alternative but 2 signals show that Oh is not Brendan Rodgers answer – Chris Sutton

Celtic were taking a big step forward in the Champions League. Then their legs turned to jelly and their lungs gave out. Even Daizen Maeda was shattered.

It’s at that point where it became evident to me just exactly where improvement and an adjustment is needed to get them to the next level and start winning some of these games. Celtic gave an excellent account of themselves against Atletico Madrid, but forgive me for not dancing around the living room. They didn’t win and they still haven’t won a home game for 10 years.

If you are going to improve and change that, it’s crucially important to see what’s not so good as well as what was and is being done well. Don’t be blinded by only the positives. That’s not easy because some of them were glaringly obvious. The first-half performance, for example, was absolutely brilliant. At times, the football was exhilarating with the magnificent link-up play and cutting edge to execute the goal for Kyogo Furuhashi was fabulous.

That just set the tone for the rest of the play in the opening period. Celtic were decisive, they played with intensity and speed and worked it like a really top-class European team in the way they moved the ball out from the back and didn’t panic. Against better opposition, which Atletico clearly are, it takes a remarkable expense of energy to glide through them as Celtic did.

Brendan Rodgers’ team was absolutely on their limit to do it and it was too much for the Spaniards to handle.

My old pundit colleague James Horncastle said on the TV that first-half was the best football of this season’s Champions League so far and I’m not going to disagree with him, but here’s the facts. You simply cannot maintain that tempo for 90 minutes. It’s just not possible