It is a measure of how far we have come during this Champions League campaign that a 2-1 defeat away to Benfica, leaving us favourites to qualify in second place for the Champions League knockout stage and assured of European football after Christmas, is a disappointment.
Unlike previous defeats in this competition, this one has not limited our ambitions.
Around this time of previous Champions League campaigns I’ve opined that Uefa Cup/Europa League qualification would be preferable to finishing second in the group stage, leading to inevitable elimination to a group winner. Teams who drop out of the Champions League have the prospect of a decent run in the Europa League, earning more coefficient points and potentially more cash, whereas Celtic never convinced me they could reach the last eight of the Champions League.
This time is different. We got it wrong last night and as a result lost the head-to-head against Benfica but this was not the case against Barcelona. Most of the current group leaders are better than Celtic, all would create more chances and have more possession against us, but here’s the rub, Celtic can score goals against anyone and can defend remarkably well.
Georgios Samaras has now scored in three consecutive group stage away games; he scored in all of Celtic’s five away games in Europe this season, surely a record. This is beyond a mere statistical oddity, it’s a result of a strategy which Benfica, Barcelona and Spartak have been unable to cope with (last night’s block-and-free-header routine was a thing of technical brilliance).
We’ve scored five goals in total in our three away group stage games. In the eight away games in the competition proper before this season, since losing in Copenhagen, we scored only once (remember against whom?)! In short, we can go anywhere and play effective counter-attacking football which even the best team in history had trouble dealing with.
That doesn’t mean we are champions-elect, of course. Benfica, who are a worthy team but are not tier-one material, got the better of us. They played to form last night and Celtic dipped. Scott Brown was clearly unfit, Charlie Mulgrew may-or-may-not have declared himself ill before kick-off but his condition did not help (stunning corner aside).
Neil also left out Kris Commons. Kris’s form has shaded since The Beating of Barca, so I was not surprised to see him on the bench, but did you notice we started to get balls into the Benfica box after he came on? More of this and I fancy Benfica would have yielded. In his post-match comments Neil Lennon reminded us his players are young and will learn from the experience.
It’s easy to overlook the fact that the manager is also young and learning as he goes along. His tactical decisions have been the real revelation of this group, even if he did leave Kris out and his gamble with Scott Brown didn’t work. His progress as a manager has been, as our old friend might say, astonishing.
Fraser Forster provided more evidence of his outstanding ability. Mikael Lustig and Kelvin Wilson looked perfectly at ease with under frenetic pressure but Efe Ambrose particularly impressed. I’ve watched Celtic defences for decades and we always seem to have a ‘junior partner’ but not now.
The defence made two mistakes last night but in all their games together they have yet to conjure up a Big Dan Moment.
My objectives for this Champions League campaign have already been surpassed but expectation levels are never level, so let’s take care of Spartak and see where the adventure goes next.
Orders are now open for the very first CQN Annual, get it here!
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Benitez expected to be named later today
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon
Benitez ?
Guardiola ?
Shurely you have overlooked the obvious candidate for the Chelsea job?
Stepforward… the only serious contender… in the blue corner:
Ally LeCoist !!!
.
Just seen the Game/Result..
One Word..
My Bhoy Greorgious..
Summa
Ps..He is Called after a Shit Aussie Beer..but he is Priceless
Now that di Matteo is lookin’ for work should the fat ginger, whispering, pie eating, despicable excuse for for a human being be concerned?
Ive not seen any of the msm reaction to the privately heard stitch up except for a few snippets on here,what really annoys me is what is in it for the likes of Traynor at the Record in the huns not having titles taken away?
It galls me to think of the fat crooked whining bastard leading a press charge always in favour of the club which has cast such a shadow over Scottish football for the last 25 years,is it really only about keeping the crowd who buy their newspaper? How can that blatant self interest ever be good for the game?
DBBIA
I’m sure I read somewhere that (before they collapsed under a deluge of debt and bad-faith handshakes) the Galacto-diddies were once a famous Glasgow-based supporting act.
With the benefit of hindsight, surely as collossal a waste of time and (other peoples’) money as one can imagine …
FF
BigSmokeBhoy 13:44 , Starry & all
Key games for Spartak are against Dynamo Moscow and Zenit St. Petersburg. Game against Celtic will be very likely their last game this season. Fixtures changes due to the weather condition. You hear that here, not on european fitba websites yet.
They are focused on the league competiotion. Have any other option?
Todays echo of yesterday events is: the miracle has not happened.
Wonder if the bookies will allow bets on the game between Shakhtar and Juve being a draw ?
So they sifted through the paperwork, heard the testimonies and came to the conclusion that the EBT scheme operated by DeadCo amounted to ‘Tax Avoidance’ rather than ‘Tax Evasion’. And Jabba has the cheek to crow and demand apologies.
‘It is estimated that in 2010/11 the difference between the amount of tax that was collected and the amount of tax that should have been collected amounted to £32bn – £5bn of that attributable to tax avoidance.’
http://news.sky.com/story/1014592/tax-avoidance-report-damning-about-hmrc
In what way was this a victory for anyone other than those who wish to play the system to gain unfair financial advantage? While the rest of us mugs struggle on and pay away and get vague threats when we’re late on VAT and Tax.
I guess the real victory is that they died to avoid paying bills that didn’t exist – although there is plenty of evidence they were going bust anyway (before the tax ‘non-payment’ kicked in).
S
Not a Sammi basher by any means but I thought he was poor, especially in the second half.
Zybszek
This is bound to sound patronising, but please pardon me when I say that I just love the way your posts are sometimes interspersed with wee nuggets of Scottish vernacular.
For my own part, I can assure you that my Polish reads as 100% Scottish vernacular.
Hx2
FF
” Wonder if the bookies will allow bets on the game between Shakhtar and Juve being a draw ?”
Sot. Why wouldnt they? Bets were allowed on last nights Valencia v bayern game.
Pete, he done nothing but score.
Bring back the new old Sammy I say ;)
If Benfica beat barca 2-0 and we beat Spartak 3-0 do we qualify?
Folly Folly
:-) Thank you. I need to go.
Tamlaght, no unfortunately.
Its a better result we need. Not scoreline.
Paul67 et al
To have qualified for European football next year, from a tough group with one game to play is a terrific achievement no matter the disappointment of last nights’ result. Even so there will be some tough teams in the Europa League knockout stages, think Bilbao and Athletico last season, so we must look at our game with Spartak, barring a defeat for Barca on their home ground, as the possible route to the last sixteen of the CL. And that would be the perfect response from Neil Lennon’s Celtic team.
Celtic Mac @14:06,
That makes it sound suspiciously like the loans were related to their footballing activity – and should therefore have been declared to the football authorities.
Gordon_J – I think you’ll find the football authorities are to blame for allowing Rangers (RIP) to improperly register players for all those years.
Haven’t Rangers (RIP) been punished enough? (thumbsup)
Geordie Munro
Ahh I see. I think Spartak are going to be tough enough at home also i cant see benfica getting anything other than a defeat against barca or barca reserves.
Tamlaghtduff, if we are level on points they will progress as they have a better head to head against us coutesy of their 2-1 victory last night.
Teams level on points are separated by:
1) The results of games between the teams in the tie (if tied, by goal difference and then by away goals counting double).
2) Goal difference in all group games.
3) Highest number of goals scored in all games.
4) Highest Uefa ranking over the previous five seasons.
Hi Ghuys
Just a thought on the ebts situation were they loans Maybe. If so, All the old rangers have to do is provide evidence of someones backdated payments where they reimbursed the money back to the club fairly straight forward solution I say.
What was the ‘footballing activity’ of ole Milli Vanilli?
Celtic Mac
So we should have used them as well? Seems the logical conclusion.
That this is admitting it was to give them an advantage in signing players suggests (as Gordon J has just posted) it was related to their football activity and so had to be registered.
Discussion earlier about teams that have failed to qualify from CL Groups on 10 points
and teams who qualify with 7 ( FoD were noted on that list 2005/06)
The example of FoD was interesting as they drew their final game in the group with Inter to move to 7 points.
I am sure that because the other game in their group was a draw that ( because of head to head ) the FoD in fact did not actually need the 7th point and would have qualified with 6 (SIX) points.
It galled me that we had twice failed under MO’N with 9 points
The Onlooker
Although dissappointed at last nights result
If you would have offered me the position we find ourselves in going into the Dec 5th fixtures I would have bitten both your hands off .
celtic being celtic and never doing things the easy or conventional way :)) I think Barca will beat Benfica & we will have the pleasure of a 94min nerve shredding roller coaster ride of a draw.
shady
Only today the ONS released UK government borrowing for October of £8.6 billion. That is for one month! £3 billion more than the equivalent month in 2011. Now of course, some on here would look at those numbers solely as overspending, but some of us would interpret, in part at least, as the direct result of tax evasion, tax avoidance and the type of fiscal chicanery which the FTT attempted to address.
Excellent point re Neil, Paul.
There is an old proverb which says:
“Smooth seas do not make good sailors.”
Undoubtedly our young management team will learn valuable lessons from this NARROW defeat and will be ready for the challenges ahead.
‘GG
Celtic Mac – Only today the ONS released UK government borrowing for October of £8.6 billion. That is for one month! £3 billion more than the equivalent month in 2011. Now of course, some on here would look at those numbers solely as overspending, but some of us would interpret, in part at least, as the direct result of tax evasion, tax avoidance and the type of fiscal chicanery which the FTT attempted to address.
It’s overspending on a criminally reckless scale.
And the hard of thinking call this “austerity”. (thumbsup)
Celtic Mac,
This is the same government party that told us Labour took us to near oblivion with reckless borrowing!!
TBB
fantastic assessment……………
Philvisreturns
Goldbergs & Santa?? you just gave away your age :)))))
BigSmokeBhoy – This is the same government party that told us Labour took us to near oblivion with reckless borrowing!!
They did, we’re still there, the current government is spending even more than Gordon Brown did, but the media narrative is about these awful, Dickensian “cuts”. It’s an omnishambles. (thumbsup)
normanstreet49 – Goldbergs & Santa?? you just gave away your age :)))))
Or Paul67’s age? ;-) (thumbsup)
I’m pretty sure we will beat Spartak who have nothing to play for.. Im also pretty sure Barca will not lose to Benfica but I’m positive Shaktar will beat Juventus.
Brian Quinn – what an idiot, eh?
Imagine paying tax on Juninho’s EBT.
How could a former deputy governor of the Bank of England be so dumb?
We should have hired Martin Bain, Paul Baxendale-Walker, or sumbdy with a wee bit of financial savvy…
We will never learn.
;o)
.
Pete the Beat..
Agreed on Sammi..
The Ref.. Never Gave him a Decision ..
His Pass to Watt late on was World class tho…
Summa
Found my way back to the computer just before the game last night (I think) and then sod me some eejit goes and plies me despite my protestations, with mind altering prestidigitatory concoctions.
To be fair in my permananent hypnagogic (the bit where you are half way between sleep and reality) existence, these alcoholic infusions can have a balancing effect and while everyone else is laughing uncontrollably, shouting, dancing and generally making prats of themselves, I find myself in a world where I can leave my mental panic room and observe life through the calm introspective view of a shaman who, bored with the spirit world takes an evening out to watch the ceremony, ritual, tears, fears, peaks and troughs of a pub full of Celtic fans in all their splendour chewing through the tables, stools and each others fingers nails in the Champions league qualifiers.
Of course like that Shaman, eventually ‘real’ reality strikes the midnight chime and I and he return to the far more sensible and normal worlds of spirit wars and hypnagogia.
What follows is my existence in a nutshell.
Eating marshmallow logs
Hypnagogia’s the door, which opens with a stealthy snore
And bids you cross into a world where left and right are tightly curled
Where up and down and good and bad, right and wrong and joyful, sad
Dance over under, whisper, shout, in your face yet full of doubt
Where he is she and I am you, where six and four add up to two
Where she is he and you are me, where four and six add up to three
Where talking dogs and flying rats, strut and sing in sharps and flats,
In theatres shaped from scarlet foam where snakes and politicians roam
Hissing, smarmy, spitting fire, each in turn a bigger liar
Selling hope that disappears and turning laughter into tears
Where voices from your childhood past, and friends and family form the cast
of echoes from a long lost age, upon that ever changing stage.
Where over there is over here and tea and scones turn into beer
As surfing on the white capped brine, imprisoned in the dark damp mine
And diving into hellfire’s fate, you find yourself at heaven’s gate
Within the ragamuffin’s queue, behind the hippo sniffing glue
With square slice sausage on a plate, to stave the hunger while you wait
Another reverie of mind as long lost love is wined and dined.
She smiles, she winks……I think she might, another figment of the night
Drowned by screams that lurk within a thunderclap like black stained sin
The bin man hauls me frae ma dreams, and Glasgow’s rain-soaked sunshine gleams
Between the slats on sleds o’ dust, and shakes sleep’s cobweb free of rust
To make me sit up wae a start, consigning racing beating heart
Behind a veil, just out of sight, tucked ‘neath the pillow of the night.
Hail Hail
Estadio (returning to the panic room)
Estadio
Liked that…
Auldheid
Not my conclusion, nor yours, but I get the point. The ruling, anonymised or not, provides both context and evidence for both the SPL and the SFA investigations into non-declarations, side letters, dual contracts etcetera. Now whether the majority ruling is the correct decision or no is for the HMRC to consider, certainly the minority, dissenting decision is the one that the average taxpayer may have some sympathy with.
Page 60
1. …I cannot subscribe to the conclusion reached by the majority that ‘we are unable to make further Findings-in Fact in support of there being an orchestrated scheme extending to the payment of wages or salary absolutely and unreservedly to the employees involved’…
I would have thought that the key word here is “orchestrated” but if it wasn’t orchestrated what was it, Sir David Murrays’ one man band?