Celtic club record signing Arne Engels was strong in his reaction to Saturday’s 2-1 defeat against Hibernian at Easter Road.
Engels started the game; however, the Belgian was unable to help the Hoops get a result in a match that will be remembered for all the wrong reasons, with a controversial VAR decision ruling out Daizen Maeda’s equaliser late in the game due to the ball allegedly going out of play in the buildup.
Saturday was certainly a learning curve for Engels, going from a dramatic Champions League exit six days ago in stoppage time at the Allianz to facing Hibernian, who attacked Celtic from the outset with an early goal from Josh Campbell. Brendan Rodgers had to make three changes at half-time to attempt to alter the course of the game.
Despite early criticism over a drop in performances, Engels has bounced back in recent months, going on to become a starter week in, week out. At the Allianz, he put in one of his best performances in a Celtic shirt, but like a number of teammates, he could be seen as guilty of falling below the standards that the Hoops have set for themselves this season against David Gray’s side on Saturday.
Despite the way in which Celtic were denied an equaliser, Engels didn’t look to make excuses, instead taking positives from the game.
He said: (RecordSport), “No, never. We don’t have excuses. If we lose or win, we don’t have excuses. I think we are like real sports people and we always that mentality of trying to do everything really good. That’s a really positive thing of our group.
“You see it also in the second half that we don’t put our heads down or something. We just keep on pushing to try to get that equaliser and we almost got it. We just need to take the positive points of the second half with us.
“That [second-half] is our normal level, I think. The first half can never happen to us, but we also need to take the positive. I think we did great in the second half. You see that we were pressing to get a goal. We got so much energy into the second half that we had chances also. So we need to just go on.”
Celtic were on top in the second half at Easter Road, dominating the final 45 minutes. However, if the Hoops hadn’t started the game so poorly in the first half, they wouldn’t have had to dig themselves out of a hole, but for poor defending and individual mistakes.
Engels and Celtic have an almost immediate opportunity to bounce back tomorrow night against Aberdeen at Celtic Park.
However, against Aberdeen, Celtic face the only team in the Scottish Premiership team to get a result at Celtic Park in October, with a 2-2 draw after the Hoops were 2-0 up at half-time.
The nature of the draw will undoubtedly mean Celtic are up for the game tomorrow night, and if the Bhoys can play the way they did in the second half at Easter Road, they will likely win the game. However, if they don’t and start how they did against Hibs, it may mean Aberdeen could cause serious problems.
