Scott Brown, the Celtic captain, insisted the Parkhead side's players remain behind manager Ronny Deila after Kris Commons exhanged angry words with his backroom staff after being withdrawn with 15 minutes remaining of the Parkhead side's 3-1 Europa League defeat to Molde. The Norwegian's return to his country ended with a group of disgruntled supporters waiting for him at the team bus holding he and his backroom staff personally to account for the performance, while Commons - one of his side's better performers on the night - was cheered. Brown downplayed the incident but insisted that football is a team game and Celtic must take collective responsibility for what occurred on the night. They currently sit level on points with Ajax, and fully five points behind the Norwegians.
“Everyone is angry when they get taken off," said Brown. "I didn’t see what happened but I’ve got to be honest, it’s a team game so whatever decision the manager makes we’ve got to deal with it. From start to finish we were not good enough all over the park.
“We managed to get ourselves back in the game at 2-1 and we found 30/40 seconds they run up the park and scored yet another goal we are disappointed with. The conditions were the same for both teams. We just didn’t turn up and play as well as we should have done on the day. Anything can happen in this group. As you’ve seen Molde have went away to Fenerbahce and taken points, as well as taking points off Ajax as well."
Gary Mackay-Steven, a late substitute on the night, said that everyone was frustrated about the way the evening had unfolded. “Kris was angry but it’s like that most times when you get beaten," he said. "Nobody likes to lose. I didn’t actually see Kris coming off but yeah, we are all looking for answers [about the result. It’s up to us to go into training and work hard to put it right. “I’m not sure why we are struggling away from home but anywhere you go in Europe, you get punished if you make mistakes.
“Everybody is very disappointed," added the winger. "We knew their strengths before the game were counter attacking but e gave them too much space to do that. They sat off us, we made little mistakes and they punished us. Molde finished their chances well and we didn’t deserve anything from the game. We felt we could come here and put our gamplan to use but that wasn’t the case.
“After 20 minutes, we were 2-0 down and I didn’t think we’d played that bad. But it’s all ifs and buts. You can learn from every game, we will look at the game, look at the mistakes and see where the game was lost. We aren’t in a great position in the group but we have two home games now and we will be looking to win them. We will see what happens."
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