Ten-man Celtic suffer heavy Champions League defeat to rampant Atletico

Celtic have suffered a heavy Champions League defeat in Madrid as Atletico ran riot with a 6-0 win on Tuesday night.

The Hoops conceded the dreaded early goal before being reduced to ten-men when Daizen Maeda was sent off in the first half.

Diego Simeone’s side were on easy street after that and made it two on the stroke of half-time before adding four more in the second-half.

A fortnight ago in Glasgow Celtic get off to a quick start and this time around it was Atletico’s turn when Griezmann gave the home side a 1-0 lead after six minutes.

The France international’s deflected shot flew past Joe Hart to break the deadlock after what was otherwise quite a promising start from the Scottish champions.

Celtic’s task got even harder just after the 20 minute mark when Daizen Maeda, who had started brightly on the right wing, was shown a red card following a VAR intervention.

The Japan forward had initially been shown a yellow for the late challenge on the Atletico full-back but it was upgraded to a red after the referee made a trip to the monitor.

But just moments later Celtic nearly found themselves level from a corner when Morata almost sliced a clearance into his own net, but it was well saved by Oblak.

Atletico started to grow into the game after that and they doubled their lead in first-half injury time when Morata popped up up the other end to knock it past Hart from close range and make it 2-0 going into the break.

Rodgers rang the changes at half-time and through on HyeonGyu Oh and Odin Holm for Luis Palma and Matt O’Riley as they looked to chase the game.

The home side continued to pile the pressure and came close to making three early in the half but Hart made a great stop from Correa before Jiminez hit the crossbar with a looping header.

It was game set and match soon after when Griezmann grabbed his second to make it 3-0 on the hour-mark and the floodgates had well and truly opened when Samuel Lino curled the ball past Hart to make it 4-0 around five minutes later.

And it just kept getting worse for Celtic when Morata scored his second of the night to make it 5-0 before Saul Niguez made it 6-0.

After that they had five minutes to try and avoid equalling their worst ever defeat in Europe, a 7-0 defeat to Barcelona in 2016.

The fact they managed to avoid that will be of no consolation in what was a miserable night for the travelling support that leaves the Hoops anchored to the bottom of the group with only a solitary point from four games.