![\"GLASGOW,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/00239d5a-614.jpg\"\/)
\nLiam Scales diverts the ball into his own goal<\/p>\n
Republic of Ireland internationals scored all three goals as Roma defeated Celtic at Parkhead, with Evan Ferguson striking twice for the Italians after an early own goal from Liam Scales.<\/p>\n
Celtic were in disarray in the opening 45 minutes and trailed 3-0 going into the break, with Arne Engels’ missed penalty in first-half stoppage time compounding their misery.<\/p>\n
Celtic improved following a triple substitution at the interval, but they could not make inroads on the scoreline as both sides had second-half goals disallowed for offside following VAR interventions.<\/p>\n
The defeat leaves Celtic on seven points in the Europa League with two games remaining, away to Bologna and at home to Utrecht.<\/p>\n
The result also saw Wilfried Nancy become the first Celtic manager to lose his opening two games in charge.<\/p>\n
Just as Celtic have plenty of time to make up for Sunday’s home defeat by William Hill Premiership leaders Hearts, they are still very much in with a chance of progression in Europe.<\/p>\n
But Nancy will quickly need to discover a winning formula as his next fixture comes in the Premier Sports Cup final against St Mirren.<\/p>\n
The Frenchman took over a side fresh from seven wins in eight games under interim manager Martin O\u2019Neill but his tactical overhaul has left the team struggling throughout the pitch.<\/p>\n
The former Columbus Crew manager ditched the green trainers that sparked media comment after Sunday\u2019s debut but maintained the starting line-up and system with three left-sided centre-backs in Scales, Auston Trusty and Kieran Tierney.<\/p>\n
The only change was that Reo Hatate dropped into a deeper position in the midfield square with Engels playing further forward.<\/p>\n
Celtic struggled to build from the back or get forward in numbers in the first half with wide players Sebastian Tounekti and Yang Hyun-jun looking uncomfortable in their wing-back roles.<\/p>\n
\nLiam Scales diverts the ball into his own goal<\/p>\n
Roma immediately hemmed Celtic in and took the lead in the sixth minute when Scales intercepted a driven corner that was heading for Gianluca Mancini, who was being marked by Tierney, but headed the ball in off the bar.<\/p>\n
Celtic were virtually missing as an attacking force as Roma created chance after chance. They were off-target from five decent openings and Kasper Schmeichel made a good stop before Ferguson converted Zeki Celik\u2019s low cross in the 36th minute.<\/p>\n
Tierney had been left alone to deal with the two players with Tounekti further up the wing and Hatate struggling to get back.<\/p>\n
The home fans, missing the vocal backing of the banned Green Brigade, finally found their voice in response with a rendition of “sack the board”.<\/p>\n
Celtic soon launched their first attacking move of note but Yang shot over the bar and Ferguson doubled his tally in the final minute of the half.<\/p>\n
Matias Soule was allowed yards of space to play a forward pass into the box and on-loan Brighton attacker Ferguson, despite being tightly marked by Scales, found the bottom corner thanks to a brilliant touch and finish.<\/p>\n
Engels soon benefited from a soft penalty award for a pull but the Belgian hit the inside of the post.<\/p>\n
Nancy brought Colby Donovan into his back three and also introduced Paulo Bernardo and Kelechi Iheanacho and Celtic had more life about them in the second period.<\/p>\n
Iheanacho missed a good chance after being played through on goal and finished well from a low cross from Engels, only to be denied by a belated offside decision.<\/p>\n
Leon Bailey also fell foul of the video assistants\u2019 lines after an impressive finish into the top corner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republic of Ireland internationals scored all three goals as Roma defeated Celtic at Parkhead, with Evan Ferguson striking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-186990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}