Livingston defeat exposes Celtic’s away-day demons and raises tactical questions - Sean Martin

For instance, statistically speaking, Sunday’s defeat is only the second time in 20 years Celtic have lost to Livingston. The last time the teams faced off, the Hoops rattled in six without reply. In simple terms: they do not statistically have a problem beating the West Lothian side.

They do, however, have a problem with doing it at Almondvale. Livingston have only beaten Celtic twice in the past 20 years, yes, but both of those have come at home and in the last five games between the sides in the Lions' den.

Even more grave than the West Lothian question is that Celtic clearly have a problem with, well, not playing at Parkhead.

Because the thing is that this isn’t about Sunday’s Livingston game, not really. It’s about Celtic’s away record in general.

A win over St Johnstone on Valentine’s Day thanks to Odsonne Edouard’s double remains the last time Celtic successfully triumphed in a domestic away game. That’s nine matches against seven different teams without winning once.

Taking Europe into the equation, the 4-2 win away to FK Jablonec in last month’s Europa League qualifiers stands alone as Celtic’s sole competitive away triumph in the last seven months full stop. No amount of spin can make that particular statistic seem acceptable.

Celtic went into Sunday’s game off the back of, you guessed it, an away defeat. This time it was against Real Betis in a topsy-turvy affair that the Hoops lost by the odd goal in seven. They could – and perhaps should – have taken something from that match and it was not, therefore, viewed as a serious blow to confidence ahead of the Almondvale trip for a match many fans would have argued was more important anyway.

Why was it more important? The fans understood that two defeats in your opening five league games is simply not satisfactory form for a Celtic team hoping to regain the league crown. The gargantuan carrot of potential automatic Champions League group stage qualification for this season’s titlists carries with it a weight of importance that frankly dwarves all but an epic run in the current Europa League campaign.

It was not, then, the Livingston game in isolation that was so important as much as what a victory would have represented: the banishing of a horrendous away record and, hopefully, the second consecutive league triumph in a lengthy winning run.

In the end, Celtic delivered neither.

Going into the game there was a clear dichotomy between the results and the performances so far under Postecoglou. There are enough encouraging signs that the Greek-Australian’s methods are taking root in the players and ‘trusting the process’ has almost been a badge of honour among the fanbase.

That dichotomy between results and performances lessened somewhat on Sunday. There was virtually no silver lining in the 1-0 loss to Livingston – save for another good display from Joe Hart – but also little in the way of villains to blame either.

Stephen Welsh must do better for Andrew Shinnie’s goal, of course he must, but the real frustrating thing is that Celtic were not error-strewn or calamitous in general – they were just so tediously uninspiring and that will worry Postecoglou most of all.

READ MORE: Detailed Celtic player ratings as limp display condemns Ange Postecoglou's men to third league defeat of season

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Even on their ‘off-days’ an Ange Postecoglou side is meant to be entertaining. It’s his whole shtick after all.

The manager spoke of resilience before the Betis game. At the time plenty took it to mean in the traditional, hearts-on-your-sleeves, leave-it-all-out-there-boys type of way. 

Sure, the manager no doubt wanted to see such raw commitment but another interpretation was that he wanted their particular brand of resilience to be in keeping to their principles and playing their own game despite key absentees.

They did that in Seville against Betis, despite the result. They did not do it in West Lothian against Livingston.

“Our front-third play was poor, it was probably the poorest it’s been all year,” Postecoglou acknowledged himself after the game. “We’ve obviously had some issues defensively, but I just thought today in the front half we were terrible.

“That was everybody, not just the strikers or the attacking players, we lacked a real conviction in going forward to be positive. That falls on me to get it right.”

Postecoglou is correct, it does fall on him. There may be questions over team selection – Boli Bolingoli in from the cold to play at left-back before Adam Montgomery, no Anthony Ralston, shuffling the centre-backs again – but the bigger issue is the tactics.

Why so many crosses into the box against a team only too happy to defend them? Why no substitutions until the 72nd minute when it was clear much earlier than that the players were not bringing a suitable level of intensity to proceedings?

Boli Bolingoli was a surprise inclusion in the starting XI against Livingston

There are other questions too, though. Ones that ultimately aren’t Postecoglou’s to answer with regards to recruitment and squad depth. That Ismaila Soro was the closest thing to a game-changing substitute speaks volumes; the importance of foresight and an effective January window was once again laid bare.

Celtic are a work in progress and Postecoglou needs a lot more time than he’s had already; they did not play to a satisfactory level against Livingston. Both of those statements can be true without the latter prompting a descent into mania.

That this defeat happened with a still-weakened squad missing captain Callum McGregor and new star forward Kyogo Furuhashi is only a part-excuse for the insipidness on show in Livingston. Both players set the tone for ‘Ange-ball’ in a way that is hard to replace.

Yet for many fans the most frightening thing will surely be that the pedestrian performance against Livingston bore a striking similarity to many of the displays Celtic put in last season and not the ones they’ve put in so far under Postecoglou.

Ultimately, whether you lose 4-3 or 1-0 you’ve still lost. But that much the same players managed to score thrice and wholly unnerve a top Spanish side in Real Betis on Thursday only makes the fact they couldn’t lay a glove on lowly Livingston on Sunday rankle that much more.

But considering other ghosts of seasons past have shown no signs of being exorcised — think set-piece weaknesses and conceding goals in bunches in Europe — is it really so surprising Celtic were spooked once more by this one as well?

Three losses from the opening six league games is a grim statistic. Can it be spun? Probably, but it won’t be here.