So the Europa League Last 32 draw is in and Celtic have been paired with Copehangen who it won’t shock anyone to discover come from Denmark.
I’ll discuss more on that later but in regards to the ongoing domestic league battle, Celtic remain top by two points after a convincing 2-0 home win over Hibs yesterday that probably should have been by a few more.
With Rangers claiming a pretty comfortable 2-0 win over Motherwell earlier in the day to go top by a point the emphasis was on Celtic to reclaim their position at the league summit and with the likes of Fraser Forster, Jeremie Frimpong, Callum McGregor, Scott Brown, James Forrest and Odsonne Edouard all returning to the fray having been rested on Thursday night for the dead rubber in Transylvania against Cluj we were always going to be strong favourites to do so.
Boli Bolingoli retained his starting place after making his comeback from injury in Romania as did Olivier Ntcham and Nir Bitton also got a rare start with Greg Taylor benched and Mohamed Elyounoussi and Ryan Christie still recovering from niggling injuries.
Over the course of the game, the home side dominated possession and created a host of chances with most of them coming in the first half.
In the opening 45 mins, Ntcham was denied with a powerful effort by Hibs keeper Ofir Marciano – who went off injured at half time – and Edouard also curled an effort wide that really should have found the net after some fine wing play by the continuously impressive Frimpong.
A Forrest low drive in the box was only kept out by a host of scrambling visiting defenders and Boli had a fine effort from the right-wing whizz just past the far post.
Celtic did eventually get a deserved lead though on 39 mins when Edouard did well to win the ball and then play in Frimpong who finished with aplomb.
Hibs had some fine passages of play in the first half themselves with Kris Ajer producing a last-ditch tackle to deny Jason Naismith from getting through on goal after a fabulous cross-field diagonal ball by Stevie Mallan and minutes later some excellent interplay by the visitors on Celtic’s left side led to Martin Boyle advancing on goal and curling a fine effort just wide of Fraser Forster’s left-hand post.
In the second half, it was all Celtic though and Callum McGregor and James Forrest both had efforts go wide by a whisker that really should have been finished though sandwiched in between them Odsonne Edouard scored his 15th goal of the season as he stroked home from the middle of the box after a cutback from Forrest.
So three points in the bag against decent opposition who will entertain Rangers at Easter Road on Friday night whilst we’re at Tynecastle on Wednesday evening.
It’s usually a tough venue for us but Hearts really are on their backsides at the moment with only one win in their last 12 domestic matches and only two wins from 17 league matches all season, results which see them sit joint-second bottom on 12 points.
They’ve only won one game at home this season from eight with three losses and four draws and have scored eleven goals and conceded the same number over that time.
Indeed in this calendar year they’ve only won three home league games from seventeen and it’s that sort of form that led to the long-overdue dismissal of the hapless Craig Levein back on the 31st of October.
Since then the position has been filled on a temporary basis by Austin MacPhee who proved equally inept recording one win, one draw and five losses in his seven-game tenure which saw his charges concede sixteen goals and score only six.
They now have a new manager in place in Daniel Stendel who got off to a flyer with a 1-0 home loss to struggling St.Johnstone on Saturday, with the Perth side winning there for the first time in three and a half years.
So we should be rolling into Tynecastle on Wednesday evening confident of really putting them to the sword and not only extending our points lead at the top to five but also our goal difference to boot.
Hearts have shown they can rise to the occasion when their backs are up against the wall as they underlined with a surprise 2-1 win at Hibs in the Edinburgh derby earlier in the campaign and also when they held Rangers to a 1-1 draw at Tynecastle two months ago that no one saw coming but their fortunes have receded even further since then.
Their pitch is in a terrible state which could be a leveller though St.Johnstone didn’t seem to have a problem cutting them open at will on Saturday and should have won it by a few more.
I’ll predict a 3-0 win and hope we are back to our free-flowing best which has deserted us a little in recent weeks albeit we are still delivering the results.
And now quickly another mention about the Last 32 draw.
Copenhagen were one of the preferred teams and we have done well to avoid big guns like Shakhtar, Roma, Olympiakos and Bruges.
The games will take place on the 20th and 27th of February so there’s a lot of water to go under the proverbial footballing bridge between now and then and both clubs could be in a very different place from where they are now when kick-off comes in regards to form and personnel.
Champions of Denmark last season they currently sit second seven points behind current leaders Midtjylland after nineteen games and with a game in hand.
After elimination from the Champions League qualifiers by Red Star, they struggled past Riga to reach to the Europa League group stage where they had a favourable draw featuring Dynamo Kiev, Malmo and Lugano.
Two wins, three draws and one defeat was enough to see them finish group runners-up to Malmo and reach the post-Christmas knockout phase something they also did two seasons ago where they were trounced 5-1 on aggregate by eventual winners Atletico Madrid.
They are managed by StĂĄle Solbakken who is in his second spell in charge and under him, they have achieved unprecedented success capturing eight league championships and four national cups with three of the league titles and three of the cups coming in his second tenure which began back in 2013.
A big plus for us is the enormous winter break the Danes take in the middle of their season.
Copenhagen play at home to Odense tonight and after that won’t play a competitive game again until mid-February when the league restarts.
We’re also at home for the second leg which is another big plus.
For a quick summation of the Danish Superliga and its origins and history here is an excellent and concise little article which does just that: https://thevikingformation.wordpress.com/2016/03/14/a-simple-guide-to-the-danish-superliga/
Anyway, there’s not much point in spending too much time on that just now as we’ll have plenty of time to pour over it in a couple of months but it’s a really positive draw for us and gives us a real chance of making the last 16 of the tournament.
Until then we have more than enough domestic action to fill our boots with starting with Hearts in just over 48 hrs time.
....Always A Tim! 