Celtic got their title defence off to a flyer with a seven nil massacre of St.Johnstone at Celtic Park yesterday afternoon – Saturday afternoon at the time of publication.
In my last article, I had predicted a romp for Celtic based on the Perth sides woeful League Cup group section campaign throughout July which had seen them lost to newly-promoted Ross County though more pertinently to League One sides Forfar Athletic and Montrose.
Before the game, I listened to their manager Tommy Wright passionately defend his record at the club on BBC Sportsound which is telling as no one had actually called it into question and is more of a reflection of the pressure Wright must himself feel under and his frustrations at the fact they have lost nine first-team squad players over the summer with only a couple coming in and a striker badly needed.
As much as I expected an inform Celtic, fresh from a 7-0 aggregate dismissal of Nomme Kalju in the Champions League qualifiers, to put them to the sword I could never have predicted a 7-0 skelping which is the men from Perth’s worst result in 21 years and even eclipses the 6-0 scudding we gave them at McDiarmid Park last term.
Ryan Christie kept up his sparkling recent form with a hattrick. His first a beauty from the edge of the box and his third an even more spectacular finish with the one in the middle being a tad fortunate with Saints keeper Zander Clark not exactly covering himself in glory.
Mikey Johnstone had opened the scoring with a nice finish of his own after only nine mins and Ntcham, Edouard and Griffiths also delivered the goods with each executing fine finishes in the second half.
Hatem Abd Elhamed also made his debut and looked pretty good – let’s be honest if you can’t look good when your team is winning 7-0 then you never will – but sadly limped off in the second half. Let’s hope it isn’t too serious.
A perfect way to start the title defence on a day in which our eighth consecutive title flag was fittingly unveiled by Liz McNeill and Sadie Chalmers, the wives of the legendary Billy McNeill and Stevie Chalmers, two immortal club legends who we lost earlier in the year.
Elsewhere over the weekend Livingston and Motherwell burst my coupon with a meandering 0-0 draw whilst Hibs stuttered before scoring late to beat struggling St.Mirren at Easter Road thanks to a Scott Allen goal. It’s early doors but from what I’ve seen thus far I’m not too impressed with Paul Heckingbottom’s English League One level purchases. Last seasons Championship winners Ross County re-entered the top flight in style as they easily dismissed perennial relegation candidates Hamilton Accies 3-0 up in Dingwall.
Earlier on today Aberdeen won a rabble-rousing encounter at home to Hearts 3-2 with the Edinburgh side literally grasping defeat from the jaws of victory after throwing away 2-1 lead and seeing young 17-year-old Aaron Hickey sent off before Clévid Dikamona needlessly gave away a penalty which was converted by goal machine Sam Cosgrove before new singing Ryan Hedges blasted home a late winner.
Rangers also continued to provide further evidence that we have little to worry about this term as they struggled to a 2-1 away win at a Kilmarnock team coming off the back of a shambolic Europea League exit. Killie look like a pale imitation of the well-oiled machine Stevie Clarke had moulded them into last season but still dominated large swaths of the game and were unlucky to concede late to a Connor Goldson header.
But now let’s get back to our next European opponents in the 3rd Qualifying round of the Champions League.
They are of course CFR Cluj of Romania who have won back to back national titles and are managed by former Chelsea star Dan Petrescu.
He’s had great success on these shores before both as a player with Chelsea and in a coaching capacity with the now-defunct Unirea Urziceni who he led to a 4-1 Champions league groups stage hammering of Walter Smith’s Rangers back in 2009 at Ibrox.
Cluj themselves are currently enjoying the most successful period in their history having been formed way back in 1907 they only won their first top-flight title back in 2008 and very first national cup that same year.
They’ve won four more titles and three more cups since and have established themselves as the second biggest club in the country beyond the famous Steaua Bucharest.
So far this season they’ve won three and drawn one in the league and currently sit top of the division after hammering AFC Chindia Târgoviște 4-1 away yesterday. They’ve scored ten goals conceding only three in the process.
In Europe, the success story has continued as they bounced back from a 1-0 loss in Kazakhstan to Astana to win 3-1 at home to progress 3-2 on aggregate before then eliminating Maccabi Tel Aviv of Israel 3-2 on aggregate also after gaining a 2-2 draw away following on from a tight 1-0 home win.
Their squad isn’t full of stars and indeed Petrescu has boasted that both Astana and Tel Aviv had superior budgets so they haven’t achieved what they have by simply splashing the cash.
Experience is heavy in the team.
Attacking winger Ciprian Deac is 33 and has 20 caps for Romania. Defensive midfielder Ovidiu Hoban is 36 and has 30 caps for Romania. Their Portuguese captain Camora has no caps for his country but at 32 has played 240 games for Cluj. Recently signed striker Mario Rondón is 33, has over 100 career goals at eight previous clubs and 13 caps for Venezuela.
Veteran Argentine midfielder Emmanuel Culio is in his second spell at the club, is 36 and has played for 15 clubs in total and has been described by Petrescu as ‘the best player in Cluj’s history.’ Though apparently, he’s struggling to makes Wednesday nights encounter with fitness issues. So that’s good.
Up front, the ones to watch out for are big striker George Țucudean who was the leading striker in the Romanian top flight last season with 18 goals from 24 games and his strike partner, Frenchman Billel Omrani whose also a six-footer.
They haven’t made any big-name additions this summer but held onto the majority of their squad with no significant departures. It’s certainly an ageing squad but also a successful one and very consistent.
Last season despite their domestic success Malmo eliminated them from the Champions League qualifiers and in a big shock, Luxembourg’s F91 Dudelange put them out of Europe all together at the Europea League play-offs stage 5-2 on aggregate.
Currently, in the UEFA association coefficients, Romania sits at 29, nine places behind Scotland which gives you an idea of the sort of impact or lack of that their clubs have been making in Europe recently.
But their recent form has been good and this will be a definite step-up from what we came up against in the first two qualifying rounds.
They lost only one home game in the league last season but did lose two of their three home European ties and at home in the semi-finals of the national cup to former Celtic European opponents Astra Giurgiu so there is hope for optimism.
I think it’ll be tight but as much as I’d like to go with the ultra optimism of a comfortable win I’m going to go for a score draw at the Dr. Constantin Rădulescu Stadium on Wednesday night with us bringing them back to Celtic Park for a classic European home tie the following Tuesday.
It’s definitely doable and we’ll find out in the morning who we could potentially get in the Play-off round.
It’ll be the winner of Rosenborg vs Maribor, APOEL Nicosia, Young Boys or Slavia Prague.
The only one that makes me wary there is Young Boys. They won the league last season over Basel who’ve already eliminated PSV from the Champions League this season so safe to say that the Swiss champs will be pretty tasty.
Exciting times.
....Always A Tim! 