Celtic were given the most sobering of reminders about where they stand in the football food chain on a galling night in Germany, losing 7-1 to Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League. Rightly praised for their excellent, previously unblemished start to the season - which included a 5-1 win over Slovan Bratislava on Champions League opening night - Scotland's top dogs were reduced to pitiful poodles by last season's runners-up. Celtic were lucky to escape the Signal Iduna Park having only shipped seven goals.
This landslide defeat - not quite at the scale of their worst European loss, 7-0 by PSG - will surely quieten the chatter of Celtic potentially finishing in the top eight of this newly-revamped league phase. Qualifying for the play-offs will be a roaring success for a team that simply cannot cope with the demands of playing away from home in the Champions League. Six more matches await Celtic - Atalanta, Leipzig, Club Brugge, Dinamo Zagreb, Young Boys and Aston Villa.
None of them will be as arduous as this assignment against Dortmund and the Yellow Wall. Celtic were completely bulldozed in a horribly one-sided first-half that ended 5-1 in favour of the hosts. Karim Adeyemi scored a hat-trick, the visitors conceded two penalties and were ridiculously sloppy in possession.
Key centre-half Cameron Carter-Vickers, suffering from a toe injury, was badly missed - but he would have only stopped so much of the bleeding. His replacement Auston Trusty and Liam Scales were horri.