AIK came through a tense final few moments in a 1-1 draw with Moldovans Sheriff in Stockholm last night to face Celtic in the Europa League playoff round, the first leg is in Glasgow on Thursday.
AIK were bottom seed in the Champions League first qualifying round, where they overcame Ararat-Armenia 4-3 on aggregate, but were bottom of the unseeded pack for the second round, which they lost 4-3 to Maribor. Maribor were beaten home and away by Rosenborg in the last round.
Last season AIK eliminated Shamrock Rovers from the Europa League qualifiers before losing home and away to Danes, Nordsjaelland.
Neil Lennon twice faced Swedish opposition in Champions League qualifiers in his first term at Celtic. Two comfortable 2-0 wins over Helsingborg in 2012 were followed by a more testing examination by Mo Bangura-inspired Elfsborg a year later, which resulted in a 1-0 aggregate win for Celtic.
Ronny Deila needed to overcome Malmo to reach the Champions League group stage in 2015 but despite racing into an early 2-0 lead, the first leg at Celtic Park was turned on its head when Malmo scored an added-time goal to make it 3-2. Jo Inge Berget, who Ronny had on loan months earlier, scored both Malmo goals. The Swedes won 2-0 a week later to knock Celtic out.
Although AIK are 19 games into their domestic league campaign, there should be a negligible gap in fitness by the time we face them on Thursday. There can be no excuses.
You and I were there in the dark summer of 2010, when Utrecht and Braga were the last teams to deny Celtic group stage football, and a year later, when Sion came within a CAS ruling of doing the same. It took Neil time to get it right, but a year later he earned 10 points in a tough Champions League group.
Before AIK, we have the small matter of a League Cup to defend against Dunfermline at Celtic Park tomorrow. Celtic have won a record 27 consecutive domestic cup games. Avoid defeat tomorrow and we set an unbeaten record. Let’s hope Dunfermline feel a backlash.
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It was a very uplifting eulogy that TheBhoyfrom Oz gave today
Celtic’s troubles are very small beer
“And Claudia’s from Harlem, she warned it wouldn’t do no good.
Sitting with your safe friends when you talk of brotherhood.
You “back-bar-revolutioneries” only talk about what to do.
You end up too drunk on your theories, to ever see then through.”
Ralph McTell csc
Corky- agree with most of that,the frustration is lack of foresight, succession planning or whatever you want to call it,middle to front we look really good, defence as ever at this time of year is a lucky dip,total incompetence ,and it happens every year…..HH
CORKCELT on 16TH AUGUST 2019 9:53 PM
You’ve articulated exactly how I felt about the start of our season and how it should have gone on Tuesday night. However, the single thing that has angered me the most is after selling Kieran to Arsenal for £25million, Neil said he hoped to bring in about 5 players, which was then revised down to 2 players followed by the killer, “We have to get some players out before we bring anyone in.” That is just taking us for granted, taking the piss. I will declare my own one man war on the Board if things don’t change. Others can laugh if they like but I expect others will do too.
If you want our club to do better get a Hun to call big Desmond a fenian failure
“Cowards can never be moral.”
Mahatma GandhiCSC
CELTICROLLERCOASTER……HAIL, HAIL CESAR on 16TH AUGUST 2019 9:26 PM
The Bhoy From Oz
So sorry for your loss. RIP Charlie. Thoughts and prayers are with you and your family at this time.
SFTB
It must be completely heartbreaking for Paul and his family. His tribute to Charlie was proud, warm and reflective.
HH
CRC
crc
The fella has guts beyond any I could muster to do and say what he did today.
It was an uplifting message at a time when everyone must have been sorely down.
TOSB I was shocked by the Lenny comments dumbing down expectations of new arrivals but was clinging to hopes that it was a negotiating tactic to stop sellers from upping the ante knowing we were looking for a few and that we had a cash pile behind us.
Net week vital for both performances & buy ins, hearing that Meling is very close.
CELTICROLLERCOASTER……HAIL, HAIL CESAR on 16TH AUGUST 2019 10:13 PM
SFTB
It must be completely heartbreaking for Paul and his family. His tribute to Charlie was proud, warm and reflective.
HH
——-
Didn’t manage to catch you today. The eulogy by Paul was a magnificent tribute to Charlie. Such a heartbreaking situation but the family are strong and close, they will get through it together.
TOSB- the 5 players became 2….and very quickly became we need to offload….which will this week become panic buying, as Lawwell knows his balls are in the vice,quality leadership.
Corkcelt
Meling. The CL horse has already bolted.
If I was having a piss up in a brewery I know who I wouldn’t ask to organise it.
The handling of Res12 has been sheer incompetency or I hope that is the explanation.
the original sadies bhoy thanks for your comments us coatbrig ghuys stick together unfortunately one poster chose to use inflammatory language towards me feel sorry for him but heyho life goes on.luv ya to bits.hh.
I’VEHADTOCHANGEMYMIND on 16TH AUGUST 2019 6:30 PM
David17
your emotive attempt to muddy the waters is noted.
Still, Tuesday was not ok.
——-
Not trying to muddy the waters at all.
I agree, it was not ok.
Mike,
“Sociopaths/Psychopaths can never be morally bounded”
That’s my view of our board
H.H.
!!BADA BING!! on 16TH AUGUST 2019 10:24 PM
TOSB- the 5 players became 2….and very quickly became we need to offload….which will this week become panic buying, as Lawwell knows his balls are in the vice,quality leadership.
………………………….
Absolutely right. It happens season after season. Lawell told is that they had plans, that they had been looking at people since February. It’s just lies. He’s very good at bringing in money to the Club but he should be nowhere near football operations. We should have a Director of Football as others have said and Lawell should provide him with a transfer fund and let him get on with it. Like you I fully expect panic buys rather than players who will be up to speed for next year’s qualifiers. Your pal McKenna might be wearing the hoops very soon. :-))
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 16TH AUGUST 2019 8:00 PM
Macjay
“Hard to avoid the impression that Mexico is attempting to achieve in stealth , the return of California , Tejas and Floreeda by people power.”
Is that not preferable to doing it by military conquest which is how the USA got those territories?
======================================================================
Disappointing.
Didn`t expect you to be holding forth without knowing the facts.
https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/155/25993.html
The point.
Would you approve of increased Mexican political influence in USA ?
While Mexicans et al. are voting with their feet to get out of politically primitive America Latina.
Who can blame them?
The Donald sees the problem and takes action while Pelosi encourages them to further her own political ambitions.
Party before country.
Lol astonishing comments on here tonight that this result was a kind of freakish one-off.
The manager sat in front of the media today and denied reality, as if he were a Sevco director.
He flatly denied reality.
A manager’s team selection and tactics have no bearing on a game.
Stats and analysis don’t matter.
Studying the first 15 minutes of a match is enough … when three of the goals were in the second half.
Where, by the way, he thought we were magnificent.
His own decision making had nothing at all to do with what happened.
And the board are just wonderful, swell, and have backed him magnificently.
This was our manager today, denying reality.
I cannot believe that does not scare people.
James Forrest on 16th August 2019 10:42 pm
Lol astonishing comments on here tonight that this result was a kind of freakish one-off.
———–
Who posted that?
The two biggest leaches out our club step forward mr lawell and mr Desmond, and it won’t change anytime soon
There’s a kind of general nonchalance about all this mate, a kind of “well we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”
As if a game against Dunfermilne is going to erase the fear that is washing over me in waves tonight, having heard what our manager had to say.
It is astonishing. If he believes even half of what he said in front of the media we are in real, real, real trouble and every respite from it is just a prelude to another disaster, because this is worse, earlier, than any of us imagined. That result on Tuesday, and the decisions which caused it, are off the Richter Scale, and it’s almost as if he’s not even realised how serious it was.
This will “galvanise” the club he said today as well … maybe the time for that was BEFORE Tuesday night. I mean Jesus Christ, if we weren’t “galvanised” already WTF have been doing for months?
Random musing.
Three days after a calamitous result ….
Heading home and, despite all that it entails, still great to be a Celt.
Hail hail
JAMES FORREST on 16TH AUGUST 2019 10:42 PM
Lol astonishing comments on here tonight that this result was a kind of freakish one-off.
……………………………
Where did you get that from? I’ve been on here for a long period and I didn’t get the impression that this was a freakish one off from anybody. You’ve not been paying attention, James. Most people think that it’s Groundhog Day, they’ve seen it all before. Molde, Malmo, Maribor, AEK and before that Utrecht and Braga. This has been the mood of the blog since Tuesday. I don’t think anyone has tried to pass this off as a freakish one off.
Brother I am just scunnered tonight, absolutely scunnered.
And the media is full of “oh wow, Celtic are going to revamp their scouting …”
Yeah, a little late in the day, but better luck tomorrow.
And in the meantime, who’s running the revamp? Who’s going to oversee things when it’s in place? Who picked the current manager? Who else?
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
In the meantime, all the good work and the advances this club made in the Deila and Rodgers tenures … we have a manager here now who doesn’t subscribe to ANY of it … so aside from whatever we build, we’re going to have to rebuild all over again when this particular experiment comes to an end.
In short, as long as Lawwell still runs the show the show is going to look a lot like this one.
A shitshow in other words.
James Forrest
I’m with you regarding our manager but you have misread the mood of the blog. There is no nonchalance about what tomorrow will bring. Many posters have articulated their fears about going to Ibrox as things stand. They have said that they want the defence sorted out and a few, including myself, want us to sign a tough as nails midfielder. Others are more bullish and expect us to win at Ibrox and win the League but I haven’t seen many lols regarding our current state until you came on.
JAMES FORREST on 16TH AUGUST 2019 10:47 PM
James, in the bigger picture, what is written on CQN doesn’t really mean a great deal. Lenny is in place for now. The pressure is on the Board to recruit and back him. Nobody is going to do anything rash until January so you like everyone else is going to have to get behind it and see where we end up.
Generally things are nowhere near as bad as you’re making out.
JAMES FORREST on 16TH AUGUST 2019 10:57 PM
Brother I am just scunnered tonight, absolutely scunnered.
And the media is full of “oh wow, Celtic are going to revamp their scouting …”
Yeah, a little late in the day, but better luck tomorrow.
And in the meantime, who’s running the revamp? Who’s going to oversee things when it’s in place? Who picked the current manager? Who else?
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
In the meantime, all the good work and the advances this club made in the Deila and Rodgers tenures … we have a manager here now who doesn’t subscribe to ANY of it … so aside from whatever we build, we’re going to have to rebuild all over again when this particular experiment comes to an end.
In short, as long as Lawwell still runs the show the show is going to look a lot like this one.
A shitshow in other words.
………………………………….
Join the club, James. I would say that this has been the majority view of the blog this week but please don’t announce it to us as if it is news. Read back.
The man we should all be turning our attention to is Desmond , this guy took a punt on Celtic to get into the premiership and it failed , since then he’s let lawell run the show until his ego got pissed on by a couple of corrupt Huns , flexed his muscles and brought in br , and now he’s taken a back seat again
You know one of the things that’s really obvious to me today, and for the first time ever?
That the hacks sat and listened to his absolute affle, his utter drivel, his manifest nonsense today and not one of them, not a single soul, called it for what it was. Not one of them said “Are you really trying to tell us that your decisions had no impact on your team losing the game?”
I’ll tell you right now, if a manager of any calibre sat in front of the English press and talked that kind of total bollocks he would be laughed out of the room, and no mistake. Every newspaper report on the press conference would call it a delusional joke.
And our media swallowed all of it, whole.
Here’s what I get from that; all these years of listening to the way they regurgitate Ibrox’s party line, the sycophantic way they cover that club … they cover us exactly the same way at times. They are petrified of getting on the wrong side of our managers as they are getting on the wrong side of theirs.
Our media is corrupt, yes, but it’s worse than that … it’s fundamentally spineless, and I’d rather they were corrupt but had a bit of bottle.
It’s almost as depressing as the words that came out of Lennon’s mouth.
THEORIGINALSADIESBHOY:
You’ll need to forgive me tonight mate, I am venting, I am spewing, this is how I clear my head.
DAVID17:
First mate, you presume that it would be “rash” to have a wee word in the manager’s ear. I disagree. The result the other night, the performance, the mistakes he made, his total failure to own up to them, the stage we were on, the quality or lack thereof of the opposition and the cost … he treated it today like it was nothing, like it was a minor blip in the road instead of a complete car wreck.
You also assume that things won’t get much, much worse and I think they might.
But here’s the biggest one my man; don’t believe for one second that if this starts to look to the men in the boardroom as if it’s getting serious that they won’t act in their own self interest and push this guy over the cliff. They will not hesitate. They will not think twice.
JAMES FORREST on 16TH AUGUST 2019 11:10 PM
We are going to agree on some things and not on others. I respect your views and your blog.
However i think you’re over the top with your reaction and jumping to too many conclusions.
Also referring to Lenny as ‘this guy’ i think isn’t befitting of a Celtic legend.
I know it’s a patronising thing to say but seriously just calm down a bit.
DAVID17 on 16TH AUGUST 2019 11:02 PM
JAMES FORREST on 16TH AUGUST 2019 10:47 PM
James, in the bigger picture, what is written on CQN doesn’t really mean a great deal. Lenny is in place for now. The pressure is on the Board to recruit and back him. Nobody is going to do anything rash until January so you like everyone else is going to have to get behind it and see where we end up.
Generally things are nowhere near as bad as you’re making out.
……………………..
I’m not sure I agree with you about Lenny and nothing being done until January. The first game at Ibrox won’t decide who wins the league unless we win. If we get hammered, on the other hand, and there are serious questions regarding team selection, for example Callum McGregor being played at left back, then Neil Lennon’s position will be untenable.
Macjay
“Disappointing.
Didn`t expect you to be holding forth without knowing the facts.
The point.
Would you approve of increased Mexican political influence in USA ?
While Mexicans et al. are voting with their feet to get out of politically primitive America Latina.”
I don’t see what facts I missed. The link you gave me included the following section- perhaps you overlooked it?
1848: Mexican Cession
Ceded to the US by Mexico following the Mexican-American War.
It includes all of the present-day states of California, Nevada, and Utah, as well as the portions of Arizona,
Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming.
Mexico lost about half of its national territory.
The link neglected to add the cause of the founding of the Republic of Texas before the war erupted- which was the influx of US citizens into Mexican territory and then getting it to secede. Backed as they were by US guns- a bit too late for the Alamo guys- they got their territory by arms, as I said.
Now the Mexicans going to the USA are, as ever, going for economic betterment, not to escape political primitivism. None of them have invaded and tried to re-secede the Mexican dominated areas back to Mexico. They would not stand any military chance of doing so. The USA has a long history of suppressing any un-American attempts to create greater equality in primitive Mexico. Who knows? There was another racist US president in power at the times covered by this song –
Woodrow Wilson’s guns
THEORIGINALSADIESBHOY on 16TH AUGUST 2019 11:15 PM
We haven’t lost a game that really mattered in domestic football for 3 years and we have a team of Champions and winners. I’m concerned but not panicking.
Brendan Rodgers survived playing Callum at LB
JAMES FORREST on 16TH AUGUST 2019 11:07 PM
THEORIGINALSADIESBHOY:
You’ll need to forgive me tonight mate, I am venting, I am spewing, this is how I clear my head.
………………
I understand, James. I’ve been doing the same all week. A lot of us are passionate about the Celtic.