MOLDE CLINCHED A place in the knockout stages of the Europa League with a 2-1 win away at Celtic, a result that means they have done the double over their Group A rivals.
Mohamed Elyounoussi scored one goal and set up another for Daniel Berg Hestad before the break, as Molde ended Celtic’s five-match unbeaten run at home in Europe.
The hosts had two early goals correctly disallowed, but did see a fortunate effort from Kris Commons count in a see-saw opening half.
However, a miserable night for Ronny Deila’s side was complete when Nir Bitton was shown a straight red card 13 minutes from time for hauling down Ola Kamara.
The result in Glasgow, coupled with the 0-0 draw between Ajax and Fenerbahce, means Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team are certain to go through to the last 32 of the competition.
Celtic, meanwhile, are stuck at the bottom of the table on two points, although they can still qualify.
They had the ball in the net twice in the opening 12 minutes, though neither goal counted as Leigh Griffiths was twice flagged offside.
Molde made the most of the early reprieves to take the lead midway through the first half.
A weak clearing header by Tyler Blackett, who had come on to replace the injured Jozo Simunovic in the opening stages, only found Elyounoussi on the edge of the box.
Under no pressure from the Celtic defence, the Norway international was allowed to control the ball on his chest before unleashing a shot into the right corner that left Craig Gordon rooted to the spot.
Celtic levelled the score in fortunate fashion five minutes later, as Bitton’s speculative volley from long range struck team-mate Commons to wrong foot visiting goalkeeper Ethan Horvath.
However, Molde restored their lead when a deflection worked in their favour.
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Elyounoussi turned from scorer to provider, with his cross clipping a home defender and allowing Hestad to poke home from close range.
Horvath kept his side ahead with two excellent second-half saves, first tipping over a sharp drive from Kieran Tierney before getting down low to his left to claw away a goal-bound header from Mikael Lustig.
Griffiths, though, failed to even work the keeper when played in by Stefan Johansen’s chipped pass, flashing his attempt wide to the right.
The miss was quickly followed by the dismissal of Bitton, who was beaten for pace as Kamara threatened to race through on goal to complete a dismal night for the Scottish champions.
Ding Dong.. Ronnys gone…
Unfortunately I don’t think it would make a difference. Too far gone now. Dread to think what would of happened us in a group with Madrid, psg and Shaktar had we beaten malmo
Absolute Rafael Shiiite! Molde are a team I would expect most championship teams to do… Celtic are awful and that was embarrassing. ..
absolutely woeful defending again shocking
It’s just getting embarassing to be a Celtic fan lately…
some of those celtic players wouldn’t play in LOI. I can’t believe that Tyler blackett is a man utd player.
The players themselves are decent players and are well capable of competing in the bloody Europa League.. Problem is the manager hasn’t a clue and at this stage the players have stopped playing for him.. You seen it last week when Commons went Balistic at him for taking him off..
The worst European performance I’ve ever seen at Celtic park. Absolutely shameful. Tyler Blackett is so bad he makes Oliver Tebily look like Baresi.
Time for Deila to go.
If Deila goes… Who can Celtic get in? The board wont splash out on a decent manager.
Don’t go blaming it all on manager, players are average at best, a good LOI team wud give them bags of it
We had enough chances to win the game they had two shots on target bad finishing and to many silly mistakes at the back again . The new defender went off after 5 mins that was a big blow Blackett isn’t up to it . If griffiths had scored to make it 2-2 and then biton no red card we had them. Ronny is never gonna win much with no money Celtic are miles behind . The days of beating barca are long gone unfortunately . Why was commons takin off ??
Why was commons taken off ? That’s Deila’s number 1 tactic – he goes off early every game that’s why he freaked at him the other week. Even though he’s generally our best players by a long shot and often our most hard-working.
Mate come on. We have better players in every position on the pitch than Molde do. We also have a budget that Molde could only dream of. The difference is that Molde are well drilled, all know there job and are clearly tactically aware.
We are not. When you have better players but end up getting beat that is down to tactics. We don’t have any, that’s the managers fault.
Last night was the type of performance you see before a manager is sacked. Deila has single handedly destroyed one of the best home records in Europe over the past two seasons.