Celtic suffer shoot-out loss as lack of attacking reinforcements proves costly

Celtic’s failure to strengthen their attacking options came back to haunt them as they missed out on the Champions League following a goalless 210 minutes against Kairat Almaty.

The Scottish champions lost 3-2 in a penalty shoot-out in Almaty, an eastern Kazakhstan city 250 miles from the Chinese border.

The relationship between the Celtic fans and their board will now be equally distant after manager Brendan Rodgers did not get the attacking options he has been calling for since July.

Adam Idah, Luke McCowan and Daizen Maeda all saw their efforts saved by Kairat’s 21-year-old second-choice goalkeeper Temirlan Anarbekov in the shoot-out after Maeda missed a glorious chance shortly before Celtic dominated in extra time.

Celtic have failed to add any wingers following Jota’s long-term injury in May and the sale of Nicolas Kuhn to Como more than six weeks ago. And Shin Yamada, the only experienced striker to arrive since Kyogo Furuhashi left in January, stayed on the bench throughout the second leg.

Rodgers’ desire to build on last season’s run to the knockout phase play-offs, when they suffered a late defeat to Bayern Munich, have been undermined by an as-yet-unexplained delay in crucial transfer activity.

They will now miss out on an estimated £20million in income after dropping into the Europa League.

This was Celtic’s first Champions League play-off since they triumphed against Kazakh opposition under Rodgers seven years ago courtesy of a 5-0 home win over Astana. They failed in earlier qualifying rounds in four successive years before qualifying automatically for the past three seasons.

Celtic were uninspired in the first leg but Kairat had troubles of their own. On top of losing their first-choice goalkeeper Alexandr