Celtic\u2019s night unravelled from almost the first whistle as Wilfried Nancy\u2019s side were dismantled 3\u20130 by Roma, leaving the Frenchman as the first Celtic manager ever to lose his opening two games.<\/p>\n
The damage began early. Liam Scales\u2019 own goal inside six minutes set the tone for a jittery, error-strewn first half, and Celtic never recovered. Evan Ferguson then bullied his way through for Roma\u2019s second before half-time, finishing with the kind of confidence Celtic never came close to matching. A third followed before the break as Ferguson spun inside the area and slammed home, prompting loud boos as the players headed for the tunnel.<\/p>\n
Celtic\u2019s response after half-time was chaotic rather than constructive. A missed penalty from Arne Engels \u2014 smashed against the inside of the post \u2014 summed up the kind of night it was. Iheanacho briefly thought he had pulled one back, only for VAR to chalk it off for offside, and even Celtic\u2019s brighter passages came with no real threat. It wasn\u2019t until the 79th minute that they finally registered a shot on target.<\/p>\n
Roma looked in total command throughout and could have added more. Leon Bailey tormented Celtic repeatedly, scoring a brilliant fourth that was later ruled offside before eventually finding the far top corner with a stunning strike that counted. By that stage, Celtic Park was emptying rapidly.<\/p>\n
Late chances came and went for the hosts, including a tame effort from Michel-Ange Balikwisha, but the closing minutes were played out in a flat, resigned atmosphere. Even Kasper Schmeichel slicing a simple kick straight out drew groans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Celtic\u2019s night unravelled from almost the first whistle as Wilfried Nancy\u2019s side were dismantled 3\u20130 by Roma, leaving the Frenchman as the first Celtic manager ever to lose his opening two games. The damage began early. Liam Scales\u2019 own goal inside six minutes set the tone for a jittery, error-strewn first half, and Celtic never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":174509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[262,1759],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-uefa-europa-league"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Europa-League-and-Conference-League-logo.avif","featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Europa-League-and-Conference-League-logo.avif",957,1063,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Europa-League-and-Conference-League-logo-150x150.avif",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Europa-League-and-Conference-League-logo-270x300.avif",270,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Europa-League-and-Conference-League-logo-768x853.avif",640,711,true],"large":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Europa-League-and-Conference-League-logo-922x1024.avif",640,711,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Europa-League-and-Conference-League-logo.avif",957,1063,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Europa-League-and-Conference-League-logo.avif",957,1063,false],"joomsport-thmb-medium":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Europa-League-and-Conference-League-logo-310x344.avif",310,344,true],"rn-home-thumb":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Europa-League-and-Conference-League-logo.avif",180,200,false],"rn-home-rect":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Europa-League-and-Conference-League-logo.avif",270,300,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Ricky Kelly","author_link":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/author\/mudricky\/"},"category_info":"Europe<\/a> UEFA Europa League<\/a>","tag_info":"UEFA Europa League","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179691,"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179690\/revisions\/179691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}