EFE Ambrose apologised to his Celtic team-mates for the mistake just before half-time which let Fenerbahce back into the game and cost the Parkhead side two priceless Europa League points. Ronny Deila's side were two goals up and well in command approaching the interval until the Nigerian was short with a headed back pass, allowing substitute Fernandao in to give the visitors a route back into this Group A encounter. There was a more collective culpability for the equaliser, again from Fernandao, which saw another team exploit Celtic's zonal marking system from set pieces. It all made for a depressing Parkhead pattern of squandering promising positions in European ties this season but there was no finger pointing in the direction of Ambrose afterwards. The group remains wide open ahead of the visit to Molde on October 22.
"Efe’s mistake led to a goal but he played really well," said Kris Commons, who scored the second on the night. "He won his headers, he came out with the ball and he was good in possession. But mistakes do happen. If Fernandao doesn’t score, nobody says anything. Unfortunately, Efe was last man, Fenerbahce got a goal and I feel sorry for the boy. I don’t think he’s under any more pressure because people talk about his mistakes. For 44 minutes, he was flawless. I went through 90 minutes probably making more mistakes than Efe does – but mine are up the other end of the park. Efe knows what happened. He’s bitterly disappointed but it won’t affect his confidence."
“Efe held his hands up straight away and we had to pick him up at half time," added Leigh Griffiths, the scorer of his side's opening goal. "But it’s a team game and we are all in it together. We can’t keep giving away cheap goals. They didn’t actually have a lot of chances but they punished us. It’s disappointing to give Efe all the criticism for what happened because he had a good game otherwise."
Commons feels Celtic can travel to Molde with confidence. "We are confident," he said. "We have given two of the tougher opposition really tough games and led in both so we will be looking to go there and stamp our game plan on them and come away with the three points. but they are in a really good position. they have four points from two games and are top of the charts. A clean sheet away from home is always vital. Tonight without a little bit of sloppiness we should have come away with three points but you could say that about Ajax as well."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here