Gordon Strachan last night insisted that a refereeing blunder cost Celtic all three points in their Champions League opener against Aalborg in Glasgow last night, though the manager admitted that his side played poorly in their 0-0 draw against the Danish champions.

The Italian referee, Matteo Simone Trefoloni, disallowed Scott Brown’s goal for offside after 77 minutes, though television replays showed that the goal should have stood. The referee compounded his poor night by also sending off the wrong player. Michael Beauchamp, of Aalborg, was shown the red card when it was Michael Jakobsen who had lunged at Georgios Samaras and should have left the field.

Strachan admitted that, having dropped these two points at home, Celtic needed to go to Villarreal in two weeks’ time and take something from that match. Given the club’s away record of one draw and 14 defeats in 15 away games in the Champions League group stage, it might prove a tall order.

“We need to take something from Villarreal,” the Celtic manager said. “We’ve got to go and try to win a game away from home. Tonight we had chances but we couldn’t take them. The game was a problem to us. We know we were below the standard we have set ourselves recently.”

Aiming a swipe at the referee over Brown’s disallowed goal and the mistaken red card, Strachan added: “The goal was on-side. And the guy that got sent off was not the right guy. So some people did not have a good night.”

Strachan chose to omit Aiden McGeady from his starting lineup, though he refused to pin the blame for the draw on his side’s personnel.

“Looking at it, that’s the most territorial advantage we’ve had in any 45 minutes in the Champions League,” Strachan said of Celtic’s second-half pressure. “We made enough chances in the second half to win, but we wasted about half an hour of the game.

“We played well at Motherwell and I wanted to keep Shaun Maloney playing in [McGeady’s left wing] position. We spoke to the players, so we knew what we were trying to do. We just didn’t take our chances.”

Even worse for Celtic was Barry Robson’s missed penalty after half an hour, though Strachan also forgave his midfield player. “Barry will just have to deal with that,” he said. “He’s had big performances for us before, and he will have again. He’ll deal with it, I’ve been there myself.”

Of some minor solace to Celtic was that, Manchester United and Villarreal drew 0-0 at Old Trafford in the other game in group E last night.

Bruce Rioch was almost beside himself at his Aalborg team’s performance. “I felt confident that my players would enjoy the occasion, having told them that these are the games you want to play in,” Rioch said. “I told my players not to let this game pass them by and I thought they were superb.”

Of the the referee’s blunder in sending Beauchamp off, he said: “Straight away I thought it was the wrong player. Michael is very disappointed because he obviously wasn’t involved in the incident.”