In a mirror image of the reverse fixture, Celtic lost by two goals after edging the first half, and then unable to get going in the second.

Had Liam Tongue converted his penalty, the story may have been different. The spot kick came about when David Paton spilled Jack Tinning’s free kick into the path of Lewis Rawsthorn. Rawsthorn took the ball past the stranded keeper who grabbed a leg, conceding the penalty. Tongue stepped up and Paton made amends with a decent enough stop. The penalty stop gave the visitors impetus, and they made Celtic struggle from a corner, with a fine save from Charlie Monks, one handed twisting to deny Peter Williams. George Sankey tried to steer the loose ball in, but bodies on the line saw Tinning’s leg deny him, and Brandon Newel also blocked on the line as the ball came this time to Matthew Gillam. In the mad scramble, Celtic kept it out and scrambled it clear. Jordan Butterworth’s low cross to the near post gave Joe Duckworth a chance to go joint top league goal-scorer, but Paton smothered. Kyle Brownhill overlapped with Newell and tried his luck but couldn’t beat the Congleton keeper at his near post and when he was beaten by Duckworth, William Arnold blocked on the line. Right at the death, Duckworth got his head on a free kick, but it skimmed the bar.

In a repeat of the game in Congleton, Celtic started well, with Tinning and Tongue both going close, but failure to deal with a set piece putting the ball into the box saw a half-cleared ball fall to Williams who threaded a needle to put the ball through the crowd and beyond Monks’s fingertips. After that, Celtic were guilty of statuesque football. Daniel Needham swept in from the wing and forced a flying save from Monks, at the expense of a corner. It looked like Richard Duffy pulled over Tinning as the Celtic defender went to head the ball. Expecting a foul, Celtic stopped playing for a fraction of a second, but Congleton didn’t, and Ethan Hartshorn won’t get an easier goal. New signing Elliott Rokka tried to salvage a little respectability, but his flick as time ran down produced the save of the match from Paton earning his clean sheet.