Soccer

Alistair Johnston: Celtic can bounce back from ‘humbling experience’ in Dortmund

The Germans ran out 7-1 winners in their Champions League clash.

Alistair Johnston believes Celtic can bounce back from their heavy defeat in Dortmund (Martin Meissner/AP).
Alistair Johnston believes Celtic can bounce back from their heavy defeat in Dortmund (Martin Meissner/AP). (Martin Meissner/AP)
By Gavin McCafferty, PA

Celtic full-back Alistair Johnston vowed there would be no post-Dortmund “wobble” following their humbling Champions League experience.

The Scottish champions went down 7-1 to last season’s beaten finalists after a mixture of being too open, some slack play and impressive finishing led to the hosts hitting five first-half goals at Signal Iduna Park.

Johnston admitted Celtic contributed to their own downfall by turning over the ball too cheaply and said they can be more compact.

And he believes there is scope for swift improvement if they use their difficult night as a learning opportunity.

Celtic had won their previous 17 matches, including a 5-1 win over Slovan Bratislava in their opening Champions League contest, and Johnston is confident they can get a bad night in Germany out of their system.

“We are not used to losing and that’s a pretty humbling experience, but they were Champions League finalists last season,” the Canada international said. “We knew it was going to be a really difficult game.

“We have to take things from it, we will watch it back and be honest with ourselves. That’s what is really good about this group and the coaching staff, we are honest and we have got to build on that.

“We have got to understand what we did wrong, what they punished us with and what we did right.

“There aren’t as many things we did right in this match unfortunately, but there will be little moments where we could make a little change to be braver in our positioning, be more compact defensively and things like that.

“We will get it sorted out. It’s a really confident group we have here. We are not going to let this wobble us at all. We just have to understand it can happen, but it can’t happen again.”

Celtic get back to league business on Sunday against Ross County, looking to build on a flying start to the William Hill Premiership campaign which has seen them score 20 goals without reply in six victories.

But they will need to take some lessons from Dortmund into their next two European games. Brendan Rodgers’ side face Europa League winners Atalanta in Bergamo on October 23 before hosting another German side from the top pot of seeds, RB Leipzig.

Johnston said: “We have a really strong group here that’s used to winning. Of course the Champions League is a different level altogether, but at the same time we are confident in the football that we play.

“Some of the finishes they had were unbelievable and that is the level. But we know we can play much better than that and we we can bounce back from that.”