Celtic made it five straight league wins yesterday with a forgettable 1-0 win at Hamilton Accies Fountain of Youth aka New Douglas Park stadium.
There really isn’t much to say about the game, to be honest.
Debutant Mohamed Elyounoussi crossed to the near post for James Forrest to side foot home after four minutes and thereafter the home side played their entire team behind the ball, rarely venturing up the park whilst Celtic continuously passed it around in front of them with no one willing to take a shot.
In the second period of play Forrest nearly scored a beauty which cannoned off the underside of the bar but that was really the only thing of note in a drab encounter with one side playing to win and the other not to get hammered.
Celtic were pretty electric in the first 15 mins or so and looked like they might be delivering a goal fest with Elyounoussi, in particular, impressing with his driving runs.
But that faded and so did he though you can’t be too harsh on a guy who’s hardly kicked a ball this year.
Big Christopher Jullien picked up a head knock but has made a full recovery and it was good to see both Kristofer Ajer back in the starting line-up after hobbling off away in Stockholm a few weeks ago and Tom Rogic came on from the bench for his first taste of football this season.
All things being considered we go into our Europa League Group E opener on Thursday away to Stade Rennais F.C. – Rennes for short – in fine fettle with 15 points out of 15 this thus far in the league and back to back clean sheets.
So to our hosts then for the 5.55pm kick-off and they bring an interesting dynamic to the table.
Based in the picturesque city of Rennes in the east of Brittany situated in the north-west of France they play in the Roazhon Park stadium which holds a touch under 30,000 and was last renovated between 1999 and 2004.
With it’s sloping, roofed stands close to the pitch it’s very much built in the style of a UK stadium and has the potential to generate quite an atmosphere.
To the club itself and it was formed in 1901 and though it’s never won the top division in the country has won Ligue 2 in the mid-’50s and early ’80s. They have played consistently in the top flight since 1994 and over the course of their history have won the Coupe de France three times.
They only finished 10th in Ligue 1 last season with 13 wins, 13 draws and 12 losses from a 38 game campaign for a 52 points total where they scored 55 and conceded 53 for a +2 goal difference.
That was actually only six points worse off than the previous campaign where they finished a distant fifth, an incredible 19 points behind fourth-placed Marseille.
Last season though was still a pretty huge success despite their moderate league placing thanks to two excellent cup campaigns.
The big one was their shock victory in the Coupe de France which they won for only the third time in their history thanks to toppling the usually unstoppable French domestic force of PSG via a penalty shootout victory after a 2-2 draw in a game where they were two behind after 21 minutes.
This put an end to PSG’s winning run in the competition which had seen them win the four previous cups in what was a huge upset.
Of more relevance to us though was their Europa League form last term and it was mightly impressive.
Entering the competition at the group stage they finished runners up in Group K to Dynamo Kyiv with three wins and three draws for a points total of nine just pipping Astana to second spot by a solitary point.
They started the group off well, winning 2-1 at home to Czech side Jablonec before then losing three on the spin away against Astana (0-2), at home to Kyiv (1-2) and then in the reverse fixture to the Ukrainians (1-3).
All seemed lost but they pulled it out of the fire with a 1-0 win away in the Czech Republic before avenging their earlier loss to Astana at home (2-0).
In the knockout stages, they showed some terrific form knocking out Spanish side Real Betis in the last 32 courtesy of a 3-3 draw at home followed by a stunning 3-1 win away for an overall 6-4 aggregate victory before then pushing eventual runners-up Arsenal all the way with a 3-1 win in the first home leg before suffering a 3-0 loss at the Emirates a week later.
Their star man is Senegelase internationalist striker M’Baye Niang who scored 14 in all competitions last season on loan from Torino. Thye made the move permanent this summer with a club-record €15 million transfer deal.
At 24 the 6’2 inch forward has scored four times in 22 appearances for his country and has two so far in the league this season. It’s not guaranteed but some rumours seem to indicate he may be ruled out through injury which would be nice.
Rennes really did splash the cash this summer, exceeding the club record transfer outlay on M’Baye with a £19 million deadline day outlay on Brazilian winger Raphinha from Sporting Lisbon, and £8 million on 26-year-old midfielder Flavien Tait from their league rivals Angers.
They also dropped another £7 million between goalkeeper Édouard Mendy and attacking midfielder Jonas Martin from Reims and Strasbourg respectively.
Veteran players Romain Salin, a goalkeeper, and centre back Jérémy Morel, who has played over 200 games in spells at Marseille and Lyon, also arrived on free transfers.
Most of this was financed by the sale of Senegalese winger Ismaïla Sarr for £27 million to Watford, defender Ramy Bensebaini to Borussia Mönchengladbach for £7.2 million, midfielder Benjamin André to Lille (£6.3 million) and Czech Republic internationalist goalkeeper Tomáš Koubek to German side Augsburg (£6.75 million).
All of this has been overseen by manager Julien Stéphan who stepped up from managing the clubs reserves side to the hot seat in December 2018 replacing current Nottingham Forest manager Sabri Lamouchi and so far he has won 20 of 42 games in charge with 13 draws and only 9 defeats. His side has also scored 70 goals and conceded 49.
This season it’s been a mixed bag.
PSG avenged their cup final loss to Rennes by defeating them 2-1 in the 2019 Trophée des Champions – the French equivalent of the Charity Shield or Super Cup – in a game that was bizarrely played in China in early August.
They started off the league positively with three straight wins including victories away in Montpellier (1-0) and Strasbourg (2-0) sandwiched in between which was a repeat victory over PSG (2-1) in front of a packed crowd at home.
But that form has arrested dramatically in the past two weeks with a 2-1 home defeat to Nice and a 0-0 draw on Saturday away to newly-promoted Brest.
We actually played them in a pre-season friendly at Celtic Park back in mid-July in a game that ended 0-0 and Neil Lennon has come up against them before back in the 2011/12 Europa League group stages where we drew 1-1 in France – with Cha Du-ri scoring an own goal that had to bee seen to be believed before Joe Ledley equalised – and defeated them quite handily 3-1 at home with Anthony Stokes hitting a double and Gary Hooper also netting after we’d fallen behind in the first two mins.
It’s a game we can definitely get something out of but with Celtic’s record on the road in European competition, it’s probably unwise to be too optimistic.
We’ll certainly give ourselves a chance if we don’t do anything like this:
....Always A Tim! 