Mowbray upbeat despite Celtic exit
Celtic’s Europa League hopes ended after Hamburg’s 2-0 win over Rapid Vienna in the other Group C fixture took them top with 10 points, one more than Hapoel.
Greece striker Georgios Samaras gave Celtic the lead midway through the first half, as he had when the two sides met in the first section game in Israel in September which Hapoel Tel Aviv ended up winning 2-1.
This time though, the home side added to their lead through a Barry Robson free-kick after the break to run out deserved winners.
Mowbray said: “I think it was a solid and disciplined European performance. We took our opportunities whereas in the first four games we’ve probably had as many chances and not taken them.
“It’s a very fine margin in football and you take your chances and you miss some. They’ve all been tight games and we’ve been a little bit unfortunate that we’re out. But we can take encouragement from tonight. We won pretty comfortably in the end and we’ve got to take what we’ve learned this year into hopefully a Champions League campaign next year.”
Midfielder Aiden McGeady said they only had themselves to blame for finding themselves dumped out of continental competition.
McGeady said: “The first half we played the way we started the season. It’s been a bit up and down and I think (criticism) is justified because we’ve not been playing the way we can.
“We’ve only got ourselves to blame for the position we’ve got ourselves in. But hopefully this will give us the platform to kick on for the season.”
CELTIC: Zaluska, Hinkel, Caldwell, Loovens, Daniel Fox, N’Guemo, Crosas, McGeady (Naylor 73), Robson, McDonald, Samaras (Fortune 62).
HAPOEL TEL-AVIV: Enyeama, Bondarv, Badir, Douglas, Ben Dayan, Menteshashvili (Lala 46), Yadin (Zahavi 78), Vermouth, Natcho, Shechter, Yeboah (Vucicevic 46).
Referee: Tony Asumaa (Finland).
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