Celtic delivered a fabulous away performance in Europe last night – something I haven’t been able to say often over the years – as we hammered AIK Stockholm 4-1 on the night and 6-1 on aggregate in the Europa League Play-off round.
In front of a decent crowd of 28,410 at the Friends Arena in the Swedish capital expectations were high after a comfortable 2-0 win in the home leg last week. On that night AIK had shown little attacking threat with their clear aim being to hold out for a goalless draw. But that was in vain and last night they would have to come out if they were to stand any chance of progressing in the tie.
In theory that would create more space for our attackers especially on the break something which was at a premium last week. Quite often these theories don’t work out though when Celtic are on the road in Europe but for once it came to fruition last night.
AIK went for it and actually carved out some really good chances during the game – twice they were through one on one with Craig Gordon but he was able to save meek efforts – with some last-ditch tackling being required on more than a few occasions.
Indeed after only two minutes a fine first-time volley from distance by Kolbeinn Sigthorsson came crashing off Craig Gordon’s post but you always need some level of luck in Europe and last night we got some of it.
On 17 minutes James Forrest scored a cracker after being played into the box by a beautiful chipped pass from Odsonne Edouard and that meant the Swedes needed four which quite frankly looked way beyond them.
On 33 minutes they were given some slight hope when Boli Bolingoli clumsily bundled Sebastian Larsson to the ground. The veteran midfielder got up and duly converted.
But literally 60 seconds later Celtic’s lead on the night was restored after some magnificent wing play by Mikey Johnstone, who just keeps on getting better and better, resulted in AIK keeper Oscar Linnér allowing the ball to squirm under him and into the net. No sympathy for him either after his theatrics last week.
It could have gotten even better for Celtic as Edouard’s sublime chipped finish came off the post minutes later and then Mikey Johnston blasted one from 30 yards that Linnér touched over via the post only moments from half time.
In the second half Celtic weathered a mini-storm early doors before grabbing two more late on with big Christopher Jullien getting his first goal for the club after bungling the ball over the line on 87 mins after some persistent wing play by Ryan Christie and on 93 minutes substitute Lewis Morgan headed it in the back post via a deft cross from James Forrest.
So 4-1 on the night and 6-1 on aggregate against the Swedish Champions. Not bad. Not bad at all.
The draw took place a few hours ago for the group stages where we’ve ended up with SS Lazio, Stade Rennes of France and predictable a rematch with Cluj who of course somewhat dramatically eliminated us from the Champions League 3rd Qualifying round a few weeks ago. They have since been eliminated themselves from that competition at the Play-off stage by Slavia Prague.
We know the Romanians inside out and based on that I think we need to be hopeful of going for 6 points over both matches as long as we don’t tinker with our formation or starting line-up too much.
As for Lazio, they are obviously the big name in the group but I really don’t think there’s much to fear there either. They finished 8th in Serie A last season and have since sold two of their best players to Wolves with not much coming in, in the opposite direction though who knows what will happen between now and the transfer window closing on Tuesday. They did win the Coppa Italia last season which is an impressive feat and manager Simone Inzaghi has a pretty impressive win percentage of 53% over three years and 157 games in charge.
Finally, onto Rennes who finished 10th in Ligue 1 last season but stunned Paris Saint-Germain in the French Cup final with a penalties win after coming back to draw 2-2 in a game that saw them two behind after 20 minutes. They have started off this season with three straight wins in the league including a 2-1 home over PSG again. So they will definitely be one to be wary of.
But all that can wait.
On Sunday we got Ibrox to face our old rivals Rangers in an encounter some still refer to as ‘The Old Firm’.
Our last two visits there haven’t been too pleasant suffering 1-0 and 2-0 defeats in games where we never really turned up.
Previous to that we’d won four on the spin and scored 12 goals in the process with Mark Warburton, Pedro Caixinha and Graeme Murty all incapable of stopping Brendan Rodgers all conquering derby day machine.
But under Steven Gerrard, the men in light blue are made of sterner stuff and now have a squad that looks capable of making this seasons title race the most interesting in a long time.
That squad is currently sitting at a pretty bloated 31 with five more first-team squad members out on loan.
This summer Gerrard has splashed the cash to bring in a raft of new players including Jake Hastie, Greg Stewart, Jordan Jones, Brandon Barker, Filip Helander, George Edmundson, Joe Aribo and loanees Sheyi Ojo and Andy King.
Most haven’t seen the light of day but they have gone undefeated in three league and one domestic cup game as well as an eight-game unbeaten run in the Europa League qualifiers which saw them qualify by the skin of their teeth last night to the group’s thanks to a late goal by Alfredo Morelos against Legia Warsaw.
Morelos hit 30 goals last season and already has ten in eleven games this season though four did come over two games against Gibraltar part-timers St. Joseph’s.
Despite never scoring against Celtic before in nine attempts which includes missing a famous own goal at Ibrox back in April 2018 during a 3-2 defeat he’ll still be their one to watch. In the midfield area, Ryan Jack and Scott Arfield also need to be shown what’s what by Scott Brown and Callum McGregor.
Both sides are in good form. Celtic have scored an incredible 39 goals in 12 games thus far in all competitions with ten wins, one draw and only one loss. Rangers have hit the net 32 times with no losses across their 12 games which includes ten wins and two draws. Rangers have conceded only five goals this season with Celtic letting in ten.
Injury wise there are major doubts for Kristofer Ajer who limped off early against AIK last night though Odsonne Edouard’s departure from the filed was apparently just precautionary.
Being at Ibrox obviously gives them an advantage that plus we’ll only have 750 fans in the ground doesn’t help.
Neil Lennon’s record is pretty decent there. In his first spell as manager with us he only won once at Ibrox with two draws and two defeats though was unbeaten in three there as Hibs manager with two wins and a draw.
The advantage will be with the hosts as it always is in these ties though the onus will be too and we definitely have a good chance of producing a result if we can show the sort of deadly counter-attacking prowess we displayed last night.
Fingers crossed. Fingers, toes, legs, arms……………
Oh and let’s not forget that tomorrow is the 19th anniversary of this. Hopefully a good omen.
....Always A Tim! 