Mowbray: Moscow is not
Mission Impossible
This was never going to be an easy game for the Bhoys but Alexander Kokorin's goal for the Muscovites in just seven minutes made the task a whole lot harder.
The Russians decided to sit back and concentrate on holding onto the advantage, giving up territory and possession to the Celts, but Fortune, Maloney, Fox and Samaras all spurned great chances to score.
By the end of the game Tony Mowbray had thrown everything at the team from Moscow but they held firm in the face of the Celtic onslaught.
McDonald and Fortune up front were replaced by the aerial threat of Chris Killen and Georgios Samaras on the hour mark and in a last throw of the dice Danny Fox was sent on in place of Massimo Donati. The ex-Coventry City left back was utilised in an attacking midfield role which almost paid off with just four minutes remaining when he shot just wide from inside the box.
Georgios Samaras had an even better chance just a minute later when he got on the end of a great cross from captain Gary Caldwell but the big Greek striker headed tamely into the arms of the keeper when he had the whole goal to choose from.
Tony Mowbray refused to concede that the tie was over. "I'm disappointed about the result obviously but I'm still optimistic." he said. "There was enough evidence there to give us encouragement going into the second leg. They were well-structured, organised and always a threat on the break yet I believe that we have the quality to go there and cause them problems and score a goal. Tonight was a game we could easily have won if we had taken our chances.”
"It will be interesting to see how they set up.” he continued. “They don't have to force the game so we have to wait and see if we can take some of the chances as opposed to the chances that we missed tonight. I would expect us to have enough of the ball to create chances over there. I would hope that the players would take those chances."
Mowbray refused to point the finger of blame at any particular player for those missed chances. "Shaun Maloney missed a good opportunity as did Georgios Samaras so we can't blame one player," he said "The team missed opportunities."
Shaun Maloney put his hand up to his miss but he also insisted that the Champions League qualifying tie wasn’t finished yet. "The feeling in the dressing room is that the tie is not dead, that's for sure.” he said. “We created enough chances and that's the positive we have to take out of it. I should have scored, we should have scored with Marc in the first half and with Georgios' header.”
"It's unfortunate that we didn't take our chances and it keeps coming back to that," Maloney said. "It's going to take a massive effort but I don't think it's beyond us. The manager was pretty pleased with the chances we made, he wasn't despondent in the dressing room afterwards. We will wait and see how it develops over there."