Celtic crushed in Catalonia. Disappointed – si! Despondent – no!

Sometimes you have to take your licks in football and tonight was one of those occasions.

Should we ever think that losing 7-0 is acceptable? Of course not.

Welcome to Catalonia: Thanks, I think.

But there are times to recognise the excellence of our opponents and to decline the invitation to panic.

Most Celtic fans had a gnawing suspicion that Barcelona could run run up several goals against us. We just hoped it wouldn't be too bad.

And while going into every match with the expectation of a chance of winning is what a top club should aspire to, it was difficult to see how we would prevent Messi, Neymar and Suarez from scoring, aided by the sheer mesmerising creativity of Iniesta and a host of other stars.

Simply, Scottish teams have had no difficulty in scoring against us and Hapoel Beer Sheva netter against us twice in both legs, so arguably the most potent strike force that football has ever seen always looked likely to score three or more.

That it was so many smarts, naturally, but how do we respond?

We can panic, start berating our players and choose despondency or we can take a broader perspective in our disappointment.

We have defensive shortcomings that have only partially been addressed, a dearth of players with top-level experience and a thin squad.

For some of those players, the size of the occasion appeared to be too much, which is no surprise when going a goal down within three minutes in the Camp Nou.

That exacerbated our problems as the tension showed in some of our passing with loose balls and a reluctance to commit to going forward exacerbating the pressure of a relentless Barcelona.

With one or two more years of experience, some of those passes would have been attacking and a little more accurate. That same hesitancy was also evident in some of the running, meaning that good possession was turned into more and more Barca pressure.

But this was quite literally the hardest task that football could offer and came at a very early stage in the Brendan Rodgers reign. It should also be noted that those squad shortcomings have been several years in the making.

Nevertheless, clear progress has been made.

We have some genuine young talent, a coaching team that understands what they have to do to make progress and – crucially – growing confidence in the squad.

And that confidence is what we must guard most preciously of all.

A result such as this could crush the confidence of some of these players and bring us right back to where we started on day one. Fans putting pressure on the team or coaching staff will only undermine our aspirations of improving.
So, however hard, let's take it, support the team and help them grow.

We have other hard tests ahead of us – and some key additions will be needed in the next transfer window – but there is more to come from this team and it can still make us proud.
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