Rapid Vienna 3-3 Celtic – Lessons to be learned from a competitive run out | OneFootball

So Celtic made their second pre-season appearance of the week on Saturday evening in the Austrian capital of Vienna, this time however the opposition would prove a tougher challenge than SC Wiener Viktoria provided on Wednesday. In our previous match against the Viennese third tier minnows, Celtic ran out impressive 7-0 winners as our season officially got underway. We all knew today’s game would be a step up in class as we took on old foes Rapid Vienna at the Allianz Stadion, and we were correct, as a much more competitive game ended 3-3.

Todays starting eleven saw the return of a few more first team stars who were missing on Wednesday including Giakoumakis, O’Riley, Maeda and Kyogo. We also got a glimpse of Jota and Cameron Carter-Vickers, who both recently put pen to paper on permanent contracts to stay at Celtic Park for the foreseeable future.

The starting line up for the first half looked strong and it didn’t take long for Celtic to open the scoring, with Matt O’Riley on his first appearance this summer netting a lovely strike from the edge of the box as Celtic started brightly.

Rapid Vienna were to equalise before half time however when a bad back pass from Carter-Vickers put Joe Hart in trouble. Joe looked like he had it under control before a timely challenge by one of the Rapid Vienna players left th with an easy tap in. The Celtic Star’s David Potter has predicted many times in the past year that this exact situation was going to happen at some point, I’m sure David will be glad it was in a meaningless friendly and not in a Champions League game! Hopefully lessons will be learned David.

After a raft of second half substitutes, Celtic once again looked bright at the start of the second half and it wasn’t long before they retook the lead. David Turnbull got the third goal.ofnthe game after a nice build up with Christopher Jullien lofting a ball out the right wing and Kyogo zipping in a lovely ball across the face of the goal that Turnbull calmly stroked home. A lovely worked goal with Jullien and Kyogo deserving as much praise as the goalscorer.

Rapid Vienna brought a raft of substitutions on after an hour and the home team suddenly started to take hold of the keenly contested game. Unfortunately it didn’t take long until they equalised once again. Scott Bain, who had came on for Joe Hart at half time, actually pulled off a lovely save but had no chance from the rebound. At this point many pre-season games can peter out but both teams looked determined to grab a winner.

It looked like Celtic had sealed the win a few minutes later when great interaction between David Turnbull and Kyogo once again provided dividends as the Scottish International returned the favour and set up his Japenese teammate to score Celtic’s third of the match. Unfortunately Celtic failed to make it two wins out of two as Rapid Vienna scored with the last touch of the game. The goal came from a corner and triggered repressed memories in my head of something which is clearly our Achilles heel. Please Celtic sort this out this summer and do not let this become a recurring nightmare once again. My nails don’t want to take a hammering everytime we concede a corner.

Today will do Celtic the world of good and we definitely learnt a lot more tonight than we did on Wednesday. Two of the goals (the first and the third) we conceded were due to things that have previously gave a lot of Celtic fans bad nerves so hopefully we work on eradicating these deficiencies before the real football starts. I think a few of my previous opinions on certain players were also confirmed tonight.

IMAGO / GEPA pictures – Rapid Vienna vs Celtic, 9 July Photo Philipp Brem

Personally I think we saw tonight that two players at least will probably never reach the levels required to be a first team Celtic player. The first of those is James McCarthy. I hate being overly critical of our players but I have to say the more I see of James the more I think he’s just not good enough. Once again he was misplacing passes and being caught out of position. The corner just before the one that they actually scored from he got caught cold and gave his man a free header. Out of the two players who can cover for Callum McGregor in midfield, Ideguchi is definitely the better choice.

I also have to say that I just don’t see a future for Osaze Urhoghide. He has got a lot of game time so far this pre-season and always gives 100% but unfortunately I just don’t think he’s good enough. I think maybe Ange is trying to provide him with a shop window more than trying to integrate him into his first team reckoning. The same could be said for Christopher Jullien, who has also saw a fair bit of game time. I have to say that the Frenchman is certainly giving his all and certainly isn’t sulking. Whether it will be enough to convince Ange that he has a future at Celtic is another thing but you can’t knock his effort. He did make mistakes however, including at that corner at the end.

IMAGO / GEPA pictures- Rapid Vienna vs Celtic, 9 July Photo Philipp Brem

Right enough of the negativity. I was delighted to see Kyogo back this evening and he showed us all once again during his second half appearance that he really is special. His assist for Turnbull was beautiful and his goal a delight too. He is a defenders nightmare as he just seems to glide effortlessly around the forward line causing defenders problems everywhere.

A shout out for David Turnbull too. He took his goal well and looked creative as well, especially when setting up Kyogo’s goal. I said in my post season review that I can see an almighty battle between him and O’Riley for the attacking midfield position this season. Both showed up today and put in good performances, if they continue like this Ange is going to have a headache picking between the pair come the start of the season. The kind of headache every manager loves to have by the way.

So on now to Wednesday for our next pre-season match against Banik Ostrava. Bit of a disappointment not making it two wins out of two today but it’s all about getting up to speed at this stage. Although beating Rapid Vienna would definitely have been nice, friendly or not.

Conall McGinty

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