Second-half goals from Liam Scales and Benjamin Nygren saw Celtic come from behind to beat Sturm Graz 2-1 at Celtic Park as Brendan Rodgers’ side recorded their first victory in this season’s UEFA Europa League.
The Scottish Premiership champions came into the game under huge pressure having suffered a shock 2-0 defeat at Dundee on Sunday and having not lost back-to-back games for four years.
And the early omens were not good as, almost as soon as the match had kicked off, Kelechi Iheanacho limped off with a hamstring issue, before the Austrians struck on the quarter-hour mark.
Celtic’s Benjamin Nygren reacts to a missed chance
There appeared little danger when Tomi Horvat was found some 30 yards out, only for the Slovenia midfielder to find the top left-hand corner, with Celtic No 1 Kasper Schmeichel helpless.
Celtic’s Johnny Kenny and Sturm Graz’s Dimitri Lavelee battle for the ball during
The home side spurned numerous presentable openings to get back into the contest before losing the returning Alistair Johnston to another hamstring issue as the problems mounted for Rodgers ahead of his team’s huge top-of-the-table encounter at Hearts on Sunday.
But two goals in three minutes just past the hour, both from corners, turned the game on its head, before Tochi Chukwuani’s 70th-minute red card for a studs-up lunge on Celtic skipper Callum McGregor calmed home nerves.
And Celtic saw the match out for a deserved first win in Europe since January, a run stretching seven matches, that moved them up to 21st in the standings and lift some of the recent gloom over Parkhead.
Rodgers: No more Morris Minors performance
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Brendan Rodgers praised his players for an ‘outstanding’ win against Sturm Graz in the Europa League
Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers:
“Sometimes with players you have to be harsh to be clear, and then you hope that you get that reaction.
“These players know that I’m with them always. I spend my life dedicated to making this team better, making the individuals better, helping the club progress. And at the weekend, it’s not good enough.
“So tonight, we weren’t quite the Ferrari, but we’re Range Rover Sport, I’ll go with. Hopefully we have no more Morris Minors in the performance. Not that they’re a bad car, they’re a fantastic car.
“But I think we showed the level of determination, and that’s what I expect to see going forward.
“I thought the performance was outstanding. Obviously we picked up the injuries early on, so that could have disrupted it, but the two young guys [Kenny and Colby Donovan] that came on, they worked their socks off and contributed to the performance.
“We went behind to an absolutely brilliant goal, but I just thought throughout the game we looked really creative and had lots of opportunities to score more goals.
“Everything that you want in a team, the tempo, the speed, the aggression, the energy, everything was there against a good side.”
