Tony Mowbray: Celtic 'Unfortunate' To Be Knocked Out Of Europa League

By Ollie Irish

Celtic manager Tony Mowbray was satisfied with his side's comfortable 2-0 victory over Hapoel Tel Aviv at Parkhead, even though the win was not enough to keep the SPL club's European dream alive, as Hamburg's defeat of Rapid Vienna meant that the Hoops were eliminated from the competition with one match left to play in Group C.

Mowbray said in a post-match interview with ITV: "I think it was a solid performance, you know, a European performance – it needed to be a disciplined one and (we) took a couple of our opportunities, whereas in the first four games we've probably created as many chances and not taken them, and suffered because of that…we could have scored more goals in the end.

When asked if he regretted his team's poor performances in earlier Europa League games, Mowbray smiled ruefully and said: "Well we generally haven't played like that in other games, I think.

"As I say, it's a very fine margin in football – you take some chances or you miss some chances.

"They've all been tight games. We've either drawn them or lost them by the odd goal… we feel a little bit unfortunate we're out of the competiton, because, as I say, there was evidence that we could build on this sort of performance tonight."