Celtic's Humiliating Collapse Against LASK: A Captain's Fury

Callum McGregor has lived through most shades of European humiliation in green and white, but even by Celtic’s grim standards abroad, this was something new. When he turned on his own teammates after the collapse against LASK, it cut through the noise of a shambolic night like nothing else.

“Passive.” “Scared.” “Now we’ll see what people are made of.”

No pundit could have landed a heavier blow. Not after watching a 4-0 aggregate lead dissolve into one of the most abject exits in Celtic’s modern history.

A captain at boiling point

McGregor has seen it all. Nearly a decade as Celtic’s heartbeat, medals stacked high, but scars layered on top of them.

He was there when they failed to score in 210 minutes against Kairat Almaty and then missed three of five penalties in the shootout. He endured the 7-1 against Borussia Dortmund, the 6-0 against Atletico Madrid. He survived the Champions League play-off disaster against Midtjylland and the twin 4-1 defeats by Sparta Prague. He lived through the play-off exits to Ferencvaros, AEK Athens and Cluj. He was on the pitch for the 7-1 against PSG and the 7-0 at Barcelona.

He carries all of it.

Yet it is hard to recall him this incensed. Not shouting, not ranting. Just cold, controlled fury. That made the verdict even more damning.

He was raging at another exit. Raging that, when LASK turned up the heat, too many in his dressing room shrank. Raging at professional pride being shredded in front of Europe.

From cruise control to chaos

The night had started with the illusion of calm. McGregor himself opened the scoring with a deflected effort. Celtic were 4-0 up on aggregate. LASK had already wasted chances in Glasgow and again in the early minutes in Linz. Now they were four behind.

It felt like the punch that should have emptied their lungs. How many blows can a team absorb before they fold?

Plenty, as it turned out. Celtic made sure of that.

The first crack came from Benjamin Nygren. His loose, aimless pass in his own half invited trouble and LASK accepted, punishing Celtic and planting the first seed of doubt. Thirty-two minutes gone, 4-1 on aggregate, and still Celtic did not look settled. Absurd, but unmistakable.

When LASK scored again three minutes into the second half, the anxiety became visible. Auston Trusty was brushed aside, swatted off the ball in a moment that summed up the physical mismatch. Suddenly it was 4-2 and the legs in green and white started to wobble.

Trusty struggled badly, but he was hardly alone. LASK sensed the weak points and went after them.

Ten minutes later, the third arrived. Panic spread. Too many Celtic players looked gripped by fear. The slow death sped up.

Camilo Duran, so sharp and decisive in Glasgow, vanished from the contest. Kasper Hogh ran and chased but never hurt LASK. Passes went astray, attacks broke down, structure disappeared. Celtic looked lost. Rabbits in headlights usually show more clarity than this.

McGregor tried to steady them, but even he could not cut through the tension.

O’Neill’s nightmare on the touchline

On the sideline, Martin O’Neill looked like the weight of the night had aged him. He would later call it one of his worst experiences in football and accept responsibility. He could not possibly carry it alone.

He emptied his bench in a flurry of substitutions – five changes in 12 frantic minutes – searching for anything that might stem the tide. Nothing worked.

Celtic did not register a shot on target in the second half. Nor in extra-time. For all that time, in a £40m match, they existed only in the way a man clings to a cliff edge. Everyone knew how it would end.

LASK’s fourth, in the 90th minute, felt inevitable. By then they had taken 33 shots to add to the 20 they managed at Celtic Park. They would finish on 40 efforts over the night. Across the tie, it was a rout disguised for a while by the scoreline.

Cameron Carter-Vickers hobbled through it on one leg. Hogh was barely moving. Wave after wave of LASK attacks crashed forward, and Celtic tried to resist with a back four of Anthony Ralston, Dane Murray, Trusty and Liam Scales.

The fifth goal felt like a mercy killing. Another Celtic mistake at the worst possible moment, this time from Luke McCowan. Another player doing the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nygren, Trusty, McCowan – different names, same theme. Hapless, helpless, and out of the Champions League.

Beyond disarray

By the end, the game drifted. LASK even missed a penalty for 6-1. Miguel Freckleton, fresh from St Mirren, slalomed through the Celtic defence late on and, briefly, looked like a star in the making.

Fair play to Freckleton and his new life in Austria, but the ease with which he glided through told its own story. Celtic were gone by then. Spooked, over-powered, out-fought, out-played.

The slick, ruthless side that scored classy goals in Glasgow now looked like an illusion. A mask that hid a fragile mentality. Nobody, not even the harshest critic, would have drawn up a scenario where Celtic imploded from 4-0 up. Yet that is exactly what happened.

The gaps in the squad were exposed in brutal fashion. There is no reliable back-up to Kieran Tierney at left-back. Everyone at the club knows they need a dominant presence in midfield, a player with stature and bite who will not be bullied the way Celtic were in Austria. They still have not signed him.

They have made some smart deals this summer, but not enough. They are in net profit in the transfer market. The word that haunts them – ambition – will be thrown back at the hierarchy again.

When a £40m tie ends with a back four of Ralston, Murray, Trusty and Scales, something fundamental has gone wrong in squad planning. On this night, nobody at Celtic did their job properly, on the pitch or off it.

The financial hit will sting, but the damage to self-worth cuts deeper. Celtic thought they had moved beyond the old days of Kairat, Midtjylland, Ferencvaros, Cluj and AEK Athens. They believed those scars had healed.

They have not. Another name is on the list now. And the question hangs over the club: how many more nights like this can they take before something truly changes?