Champions League playoff round: LASK 5 (Usor 32, Ljubicic 48, Adeniran 58, 109, Flecker 90) Celtic 1 (McGregor 21) (LASK win 5-4 on <\/b>aggregate)<\/b><\/p>\n
Celtic<\/a> threw away a four-goal lead in Austria as they missed out on the Champions League<\/a> for the second year running.<\/p>\n The Scottish champions looked to be cruising into the league stage when Callum McGregor put them 4-0 up on aggregate against LASK with a 21st-minute deflected strike.<\/p>\n However, they went on to endure one of their all-time European lows with a 5-1 defeat in Linz delivering a \u00a320 million-plus blow.<\/p>\n The Hoops had other chances in the first half but the Austrians gave themselves a lifeline when Moses Usor pounced on a loose pass from Benjamin Nygren to level on the night in the 32nd minute.<\/p>\n The tie began to spiral out of Celtic\u2019s control early in the second half as Robert Ljubicic and Samuel Adeniran netted from outside the box.<\/p>\n Martin O\u2019Neill\u2019s side looked like they would cling on but Florian Flecker nodded home from close range in stoppage-time to spark an additional 30 minutes.<\/p>\n Celtic had disappeared as an attacking force at half-time and Adeniran delivered the knockout blow that sends the Hoops into the Europa League.<\/p>\n The Hoops exited on penalties at the play-off stage last season after failing to sign a proven striker before drawing a blank against Kairat Almaty. Fans will this year question the decision to sell Arne Engels just ahead of the first leg after they lost control in midfield in Austria.<\/p>\n The quality of Celtic\u2019s finishing had been the difference in Glasgow but LASK created chances throughout and the second leg started in similar fashion.<\/p>\n Celtic looked to extend their lead. Mika Baur stabbed an early chance just wide and Kasper Hogh forced a couple of first-half saves from decent opportunities.<\/p>\n McGregor opened the scoring in between those chances when he drilled a first-time shot in off a defender after Yang Hyun-jun had played a one-two with Kieran Tierney.<\/p>\n The home side had exerted some pressure just before McGregor\u2019s goal and they levelled following careless play from Nygren.<\/p>\n The Austrian champions pulled a goal back three minutes after the restart when Usor outmuscled Auston Trusty and worked the ball inside for Ljubicic to drive home from 20 yards.<\/p>\n Celtic endured some nervy moments before they conceded again in the 58th minute when Adeniran curled a wonderful first-time strike into the top corner from 25 yards.<\/p>\n Celtic were on the ropes. Several shots flew past Viljami Sinisalo\u2019s goal before the Finn pulled off a great stop from Sascha Horvath. Joao Victor Tornich headed inches wide from the resulting corner.<\/p>\n Adeniran fired off the underside of the bar and Celtic defended with four centre-backs as Liam Scales and Dane Murray came on to join Trusty and Cameron Carter-Vickers.<\/p>\n With Luke McCowan, Reo Hatate and Sebastian Tounekti also off the bench, Carter-Vickers had to struggle on with cramp and Celtic could not hold out. Sinisalo made a great stop from a Tornich header but Flecker converted the rebound.<\/p>\n Anthony Ralston replaced Carter-Vickers as extra-time allowed O\u2019Neill to make an extra change and Celtic appeared to stem the tide.<\/p>\n However, Adeniran fired home from 25 yards with five minutes left after dispossessing McCowan and Celtic could not threaten after Sinisalo\u2019s penalty save denied the striker his hat-trick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Champions League playoff round: LASK 5 (Usor 32, Ljubicic 48, Adeniran 58, 109, Flecker 90) Celtic 1 (McGregor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1169464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[748,2353,1614,393,4884,12,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":["post-1169463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-britain","tag-celtic","tag-champions-league","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland","tag-scotland","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wales"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117159037806079391","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1169463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1169464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1169463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1169463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1169463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}