Tag: Thursday night

The Seven Month European Journey ends with mixed feelings.

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Celtic exited Europe last night with a 1-0 defeat to Valencia in the Mestalla.

There was little surprise. Few if any held out any genuine hope of our progression last night after a pretty disastrous 2-0 home defeat at Celtic park eight days ago.

But in fairness, we did gain a fair amount of redemption for our disappointing performance in the home leg. Last night we approached the game with some belief, quite a lot of it actually and a plan. Unlike the first tie, we showed we are a capable passing team with decent game management and for most of the first half controlled the ball and looked the more likely to score. On 37 mins though Jeremy Toljan got his second yellow card and any flickering hopes of an unlikely comeback were more or less extinguished. We came under the cosh for the rest of the half and it took some fine saves from Scott Bain, who is now really starting to look the real deal, to prevent our hosts from scoring and the floodgates from opening.

Image result for valencia 1-0 celtic scott bain
Bain looks the part.

In the second half, Bain again was called into action though we began to grow into it again and Kristofer Ajer miscued a header from a freekick into the box that could have put us right back in it and the cat really amongst the pigeons.  Alas, it went high, wide and handsome.

Substitute Kevin Gaimero tapped in the only goal on 70 minutes and that was that but we kept battling to the end determined to make sure we didn’t fall to an undeserved heavy defeat and when the whistle went we departed the continental stage at the Last 32 round with our heads held high.

In truth, we didn’t create much in the way of clear cut chances. Oliver Burke was deployed up front by himself in the first half and though his pace hurt the Spaniards his lack of a first touch certainly didn’t. Jonny Hayes had a good far post chance but scooped his effort over the bar. In the second half, James Forrest was inexplicably moved into the middle as the lone striker whilst Odsonne Edouard and Timothy Weah looked on from the bench most likely perplexed. Why French Eddy wasn’t deployed from the start with Burke out wide in his natural position only Brendan knows but a combination of lacking faith in his own convictions as well as just overrating Burke’s abilities as a finisher are the leading candidates.

Personally, I thought it was a missed opportunity last night. Valencia looked a little bereft and the home fans were on their back pretty quickly. Our passing game was much sharper with Mcgregor and Brown in particular far better than they had been at Celtic Park. With an actual striker on who knows but I guess that’s neither here nor there because Toljan getting his marching orders pretty much torpedoed our hopes anyway. The German full-back was naive but at the same time, it was the sort of sending off you get against bigger name opposition on the continent that you just know the ref wouldn’t give against them. He wasn’t shy to flash yellow cards at us all night whilst giving out warnings to the men in white shirts for identical fouls. But it’s always been that way in Europe and will never change.

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No chance he’s doing that to the number 5 in white.

Looking back we’ve played a mammoth 16 games in European competition this season. That’s far more than the nine we played to win the European Cup in 1967 or even the 15 we played in the 2002/2003 season when we reached the UEFA Cup final after a Champions League play-off defeat. So the most in one season in our history. Of those 16 ties, we won seven, drew three and lost six. A mixed bag.

The highlight was undoubtedly the 2-1 home win against RB Leipzig at Celtic Park on a night where we defeated a team who have been sitting in fourth spot in the Bundesliga all season.

The lows were…….well take your pick basically. The Champions League elimination to Athens, drawing away in Suduva, being bowled over so easily away to Salzburg and in Leipzig or the anticlimactic displays at home to Salzburg and Valencia.

Scottish football as a whole has also seen its stock risen with the Scottish league’s coefficient rising from 25 to 20 due to this season displays. A draw last night would have actually nudged Scotland slightly ahead of Serbia in 19th spot so, on the whole, it’s been a beneficial season for everyone with not just Celtic actually delivering some points for once.

Brendan’s European record still isn’t great. 16 wins from 40 games with six draws and 18 losses isn’t horrific but could and should be better. With only 12 wins from 32 European ties Neil Lennon’s record was actually worse but his win column included the victory over Barcelona and also saw us progress to the Champions League Last 16 with a Scottish record for a club from these shores in the Champions League of 10 points, something which is unlikely to be repeated any time soon if at all.

Gordan Strachan’s also wasn’t great either with only eight wins from 26 but those were, of course, the days when we hardly played any qualifiers and, as a result, minnows, and were generally straight in with the big boys. He also took us to glory nights against Manchester Utd (1-0), AC Milan (2-1), Benfica (3-0), Donetsk (2-1) and back to back Champions League Last 16 qualifications which once again will unlikely happen in the foreseeable future.

He is of course way off Martin ONeill’s ledger which includes an incredible 26 wins in European competition from 53 European ties and had far too many glory nights to mention with the greatest of his achievements being leading us to our first major European final in  33 years.

Anyway, this seasons is done and playing in Europe after Christmas is no mean feat. That’s only the eight-time we’ve done it in the past 39 years which should put our European expectations into some kind of perspective.  That and the fact that Kevin Gaimero who came on as a sub to score against us last night has won the competition we were playing in an incredible four times which shows you what we are up against.

Onwards and upwards domestically starting with a revitalised Motherwell on Sunday.

 

Europa League Preview: Celtic vs Red Bull Salzburg. Win, draw or bust!

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Tomorrow night Red Bull Salzburg visit Glasgow and we find ourselves in a tricky predicament.

The results fell for us just the way we wanted them two weeks ago on matchday five. We did what we needed to do in Trondheim and despite surprisingly starting as underdogs Salzburg maintained their perfect record in the group by seeing off Leipzig 1-0.

So going into matchday six we sit second top on 9 points whilst Leipzig are on 6. Salzburg are of course already far away and over the hills having qualified with their win at home against their Red Bull counterparts and sit on 15 points.

Image result for celtic vs red bull leipzig 2-1 pictures
More of this will be required.

In theory, it’s all worked out beautifully for us. We need just a draw and a solitary point to progress to the last 32. Of course, if Rosenborg can do the unthinkable and hold out for a draw somehow over in Germany then we won’t even need that and the 9 points will do us but let’s face it….that’s not going to happen. The Norwegians have been pretty hopeless thus far having lost all five group matches as well as conceding 13 goals and only scoring three. In their home fixture against Leipzig, they were spanked 3-1 and now literally having nothing to play for as they were eliminated by us a fortnight ago.

Added to that their season ended a week ago on Sunday when they sealed a historic treble by winning the Norwegian Cup final so safe to say their players have been on both party and holiday mode ever since. There’s even a chance Niklas Bendtner might already be back home in his native Denmark serving his 50 days house arrest already after he was convicted of clouting a taxi driver.

Leipzig are struggling of late having lost two of their last three league games including a surprise 3-0 hammering away to lowly Freiburg at the weekend when they played a full strength team. They’ve actually lost four out of their last six if you include their last two Europa League games and all of this comes after they had only lost only one of their previous 14 matches in all competitions and had gone 11 straight unbeaten against domestic opposition. But even with all that being said I still fully expect them to hammer an unmotivated and potentially unfit Rosenborg side and if there’s an early goal it could be an avalanche.

Our destiny is in our own hands and we really need to just focus on what we need to do. It’s a daunting task as Red Bull Salzburg are the form team of Europe. Managed by the impressive Marco Rose they sit top of the Austrian Bundesliga with a 14 point gap over second-placed LASK Linz and are unbeaten in an incredible 29 games in all competitions this term. That does include being eliminated on away goals over two legs against Red Star Belgrade in the Champions League qualifiers but either way, it’s pretty impressive. Slightly terrifying actually.

Image result for salzburg vs celtic
Less of this is also required. 

I’m looking for crumbs of comfort here but having won their first 10 straight league matches they’ve actually drawn three of their last seven and were held to a 2-2 draw away at bottom side FC Admira Wacker Mödling on Saturday.

So there’s always that.

But then I remember they’ve also scored 75 goals in those 29 games. I mean we’ve been pretty free-scoring this season but even having played five games more – 21 domestic games plus 13 in Europe – more than them we’ve only scored 64 goals by comparison. They really are an awesome attacking team.

We are of course in pretty good form ourselves having only lost one of our last seventeen domestic games and haven’t lost any of our last twelve with ten wins. More than half of our goals have come in that time too so in actual fact our recent scoring exploits have matched the Austrians, domestically at least.

In the Europa League, they’ve scored three times the number of goals we have – 15 to 5 – which is telling but despite playing five games more than them we’ve actually only conceded 20 goals all season to their 22 in all competitions.

That last one begs the question should we defend and try and hold out for a point?

My swift reply would be ‘no’. Of course, we shouldn’t bomb forward and attack them relentlessly either. They are deadly on the counter attack as we found out over there and have pace throughout the team. Israeli international Moanes Dabour was scoring goals for fun this season but only has one in his last eight however his Japanese internationalist striking partner Takumi Minaminois has stepped into the void in that time scoring six and Fredrik Gulbrandsen, Xaver Schlager and 19-year-old Hannes Wolf have also all been in pretty hot form in front of goal of late too.

Even taking how good they are going forward and our impressive number of clean sheets this season into consideration the fact is we are just not built for all-out defence. And against elite European opposition, and make no mistake Salzburg are just that, we never keep a clean sheet so any notions of a backs to the wall job are fanciable at best.

This situation reminds me of when Maribor came calling in a Champions League play-off against Ronny Deila’s Celtic back in late August of 2014. We had, of course, gained a credible 1-1 away draw in the first leg and Callum McGregor’s goal would have been enough to take us through if we’d held them to a goalless draw at home. But a home crowd on a big European night at Celtic Park demands more than just holding out for scoreless draws and Deila’s side looked like they literally didn’t know whether to stick or twist all evening. In the end, we conceded late on and there was no way back for us.

Image result for maribor 1-0 celtic
To quote the legendary Arthur Montford: “The faces tell it all.”

I’m stating the obvious here but our game plan on Thursday needs to try and get the balance right between defending when we need to and attacking when we can. It’s easier said than done and we may need to carry a bit of luck. In fact, the chances are we definitely will.

I’d definitely like to see the in-form James Forrest get at their veteran 33-year-old left back Andreas Ulmer as much as possible with both Odsonne Edouard and Scott Sinclair also needing to effectively exploit the space given up by the attack-minded right-back Stefan Lainer. At the same time, Kieran Tierney needs to replicate his awesome display against Leipzig and Christie, Benkovic, McGregor and Rogic all need to translate their incredible domestic form into a continental affair.

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How we’d all love to see this again. 

Salzburg, in theory, could write the game off. They’re already through and have a home tie on Sunday against third-placed SKN St. Pölten which is their final league game before a two months winter break. But with only two games before such a mammoth domestic break the chances are they are unlikely to rest anyone or to drop down through the gears as they have a chance to complete the first half of the season undefeated.

As much as we may be up against it maybe we should have faith in our own form and let’s not forget the Celtic Park factor. Far bigger and well-resourced sides than Salzburg have visited Celtic Park in the not too distant past and come away with only a draw or worse. We are also on an unbeaten home run of seven games in Europe with six wins which includes the notable scalps of Leipzig and Zenit St.Petersburg.

Fingers crossed for the right result and a memorable night that will exceed anything we’ve achieved since defeating Barcelona on that famous night back in 2012.

Ryan Christie & co….it’s over to you.

Oh and don’t forget the disco lights. They’re guaranteed not to disappoint.

Europa League preview: Celtic vs Leipzig. It’s do or die time.

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Tomorrow night Celtic will limber up for a Europa League clash with Leipzig, or Red Bull Leipzig to give them their full moniker or even RasenBallsport Leipzig e.V. if you’re going to get technical.

Whatever the hell you want to call them the fact is that it’s a ‘must win’ game if we want to maintain any hopes of  European football after Christmas.

There has been a general malaise about Celtic in European football so far this term. Indeed you could’ve said that about the season as a whole but since thumping St.Johnstone 6-0 just over four weeks ago we seem to have kicked on big style domestically with five straight wins scoring a pretty incredible 23 goals in the process with only two conceded. That’s made even more impressive by the fact we’d only scored 10 in our previous eight matches on domestic soil.

We are in another League Cup final and are just one point behind Hearts at the top of the League with a game in hand.

So safe to say the worm has turned.

Of course in Europe though, it’s another story. Having cruised through the first few Champions League qualifying rounds we were disappointingly eliminated by a pretty bang average AEK Athens side and then struggled away against Lithuanian champions FK Suduva before a comfortable win at Celtic Park secured the group stages.

It was a tough draw but after squeezing past Rosenborg on matchday one we have looked decidedly uninspired on the road in our two away games against Salzburg and Leipzig.

So uninspired in fact that we now require a win tomorrow night to stand a realistic chance of continuing onto the Last 32. Indeed a defeat and we’ll be out if Salzburg win or draw in Norway – which let’s face it they are pretty much guaranteed to do – as that would put the Swiss on an unattainable 10 or 12 points whilst we could only match Leipzig’s 9 points but would be out on the head to head.

Image result for brendan rodgers celtic europe
Brendan has to get it right on Thursday night.

It’s pretty incredible that we find ourselves in this situation of possible Europa League elimination after only four group games. I mean I’ve grown accustomed to us getting skelped in the Champions League but there you are up against top quality in the likes of PSG, Bayern Munich and Barcelona. Financially they exist in a different stratosphere and although we are still somewhat outgunned by the two Red Bull teams the gap shouldn’t be unbridgeable. But in the two games, we’ve been up against them so far we’ve been pretty easily swatted aside.

Against Salzburg, we played the perfect European away game in the first 45 mins as we scored early, looked difficult to break down and almost had another on the break just before the half-time whistle. In the second half though we inexplicably changed it and lost 3-1 going on five or six. Away in Germany a fortnight ago we similarly looked decent for the opening half an hour and could have been in front before capitulating just before halftime and from there we meekly saw out the rest of the game.

Brendan’s record in home competitions is of course sensational. Only six defeats from 108 games with every domestic tournament he’s entered ending in victory.  He has an 84% win ratio which is pretty incredible. However, on the continent, it’s been a different story.

Very different.

Brendan’s current record stands at a mere 14 wins from 37 matches with 8 draws and 15 defeats. A 38% win ratio. Quite a drop.

Yes, the standard in Europe is better than domestically. We know that.

But as Red Star Belgrade proved on Tuesday night against Liverpool there are ways of taking down a financial leviathan.

The problem is we try and apply our domestic tactics to our continental opposition and that’s the equivalent of taking a knife to a gun fight or in the case of the Champions League a sword to a nuclear arms race.

Just look across the city as a pretty bang average Rangers team have gone unbeaten in 11 matches in Europe and though I suspect that record-breaking run will be ending pretty soon it just goes to show that with the right tactics good results are possible.

Tomorrow night will see the return of several key players such as impressive central defender Filipe Benkovic, James Forrest – who’s already racked up nine goals this season – and most importantly midfield playmaker Tom Rogic. All three were desperately missed in the away game and will be vitally important against our German visitors.

There is, of course, an elephant in the room though. That being Leipzig themselves. They were in impresisve form coming into the last match and since then…….well they’ve continued to do pretty well with two back to back goalless draws away to Augsburg and at home to Schalke 04 followed by last weekends 3-0 away thumping of Hertha Berlin. As a result, they sit in fourth place in the Bundesliga only one point behind Bayern Munich and Borussia Mönchengladbach and five behind unbeaten leaders Borussia Dortmund. They also won 2-1 away to Hoffenheim last week in the second round of the national cup and have suffered only one domestic loss all season, that coming in the opening day to Dortmund.

So that doesn’t bode well but there is salvation and it’s the fact that their three best players won’t feature as according to the Bundesliga website Forsberg (groin), Poulsen (muscular), and Werner (foot) all won’t make it. The thing is though that none of those three featured in the home match either and it made little difference but we were of course shorn of the three I mentioned above.

Image result for Timo Werner
Timo floats off injured to the sidelines.

In summation, we’ll be stronger and they’ll remain without their three-star players with Werner missing being a particular bonus as he’s scored four times in his last two matches.

Our record at home in Europe recently has been impressive – five wins and one draw in the last six – but the record against German clubs on the continent is pretty horrific winning only three of  23 encounters and none of our last 10 (D3 L7).

Scary stuff, however, I take comfort in our recent form, our returning players, the personnel they’ll have out and if we can deliver anything like the kind of intensity we produced against Bayern Munich this time last season which was the last time a German club visited Celtic Park then maybe just maybe we can win this one and resurrect the Europa League dream.

It’s a big night for Celtic but an even bigger night for Brendan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVSFPzYanCI

Europa League Preview: Celtic vs Rosenborg.

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I don’t know about you but I’m struggling to contain my excitement about tonight’s game with Norwegian Champions Rosenborg.

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It’s always nice to experience something a little different on the European front.

And could anything be more different and exotic than Rosenborg…..from Trondheim……..who we’ve already played four times over the past 13 months?

We could have been running out in the Amsterdam Arena last night as part of the Champions League instead but this is much better.

Though sarcasm aside I am actually pretty happy that we’re in the Europa League this year. Yes, there is a cash benefit to the Champions League group stages that dwarfs anything on offer in the Europa League but outside of that we are literally bringing a blunt knife to a gunfight every year and I take no satisfaction is seeing us slaughtered by near cricket scorelines by the likes of PSG and Barcelona.

Rosenborg themselves are actually going through a bit of a purple patch at the moment.

They have gone 11 games unbeaten since losing to us 3-1 at Celtic Park back on July 25th at Celtic Park.

Six of these have been in the league and five in Europe including one against us – the 0-0 game on their patch – with the other four in Europea league qualifying. It’s also included nine wins from the eleven games with five wins and a draw domestically and four out four in the qualifiers.

They swatted aside Irish Champions Cork City 5-0 on aggregate and then dispatched Macedonian title holders Shkëndija 5-1 over the two legs. So pretty plain sailing there.

In the league, they are currently top of the pile with a two-point advantage over Brann after playing 22 games thus far. If they do retain their domestic crown this year it will be their fourth on the spin. Safe to say they are back to being the all-conquering domestic powerhouse of Norwegian football after a relatively lean patch from 2005 to 2014 where they only won three titles. Previous to that they had claimed 13 in a row.

They are coached by, on an interim basis, for now, Dutchman Rini Coolen. He took over on the eve of our last home game against them after his predecessor KĂĄre Ingebrigtsen, to whom he’d been an assistant, was pretty surprisingly sacked. Ingebrigtsen had led the Rosenborg revival since his appointment in 2014 winning the aforementioned trio of back to back league titles and capturing seven domestic trophies in total. Though in fairness Rosneborg’s pretty imperious form since then would indicate it has been the right call, albeit harsh.

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Interim boss Rini.

None of Rosenborg’s strikers’ are particularly prolific – indeed none of them are anywhere near the top goalscorers charts in the league so far – but there’s no doubt their star man is Danish internationalist and former Arsenal marksman Nicklas Bendtner. He has 109 career club goals with 30 of them coming in 72 games for his current employers. He was particularly profligate last year with 23 in 43 appearances, however, this season he’s only hit the net 9 times in 23 games. Three of those strikes have come in Europe.

Talk of Bendtner though in regards to tonight’s game could be academic as the word is he’s likely to miss the game through injury.

It should be a tough game what with the run they are on but considering we ran over the top of them the last time they came to Celtic Park with a 3-1 win that was going on 6-1 and now have more games and sharpness in our legs there really is no excuses. As he did in the last home encounter against them French Eddy really must shine and begin to justify his huge club record transfer fee which was just confirmed in the clubs latest accounts.

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More of this tonight, please.

We’ve not been particularly great this season and indeed since we spanked Rosenborg have had a pretty patchy record from 11 games with only five wins, four draws and two defeats across all competitions. There’s no point in analysing our from though. We’re all acutely aware of it.

A win tonight is vital if we are to retain any genuine hopes of advancement to the last 32. For a start, it’s at home and secondly, it’s against opposition we know we can beat.

Last word on Rosenborg their last match was in the last this past Sunday. They won 3-2 away at Vålerenga who are coached by the one and only Ronny Deila.

Ronny was unlucky. Wasn’t he always?!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zviC0upgXDs