At his presidential inauguration in 1963, Lydon B. Johnson said, “I would give anything not to be standing here today”. It is with a similar sense of mourning that we look at tonight’s Europa League qualifier between two Baltic sides, Spartaks Jurmala and Suduva, to discover who we face in the play-off round. I wouldn’t give anything to be in the Champions League qualifier, but I’d happily concede a few league defeats.
Europa League group stage qualification can be worth up to £10m to Celtic, but even winning the trophy will not come near to closing the financial gap between this tournament and Champions League group stage money. Still, it is an important tournament for reasons other than money.
Accumulating Uefa coefficient points in the Champions League has proven very difficult for Celtic. Winning games in the Europa will be easier; we have to deliver on this target. It is also important to qualify from the group into the knockout stages. We have not faced genuine domestic competition in a very long time, and I see little change this year. As a consequence, we need European action after Christmas. Better teams that Celtic have licked their wounds and got on with life in the Europa League, we need to do the same and prepare for the tournament in a professional manner.
I don’t know if the intervening 16 years have been kind to Suduva since we last met 16 years ago, but they hold a special place in our folklore, so I hope they progress tonight. I also have a great wee story of one man pitching up in the North Stand for a few minutes at the home game, just to be there.
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They are confident and have momentum…and they have a very good goalie…that makes them dangerous. Morelos is a very decent player (nae sniggering at the back). He works hard, misses sitters and scores as well. Also, you can see the team spirit is good. A bit like us in Brendan’s first season. I’m just glad the first game is at CP…Master v Pupil…hmmm!
GBS
Deja vu. Same outcome a real possibility,
2008 was when there was the first whiff of Rangers really going into admin. I am sure we held money back in case the rainy day came.
This happened
https://youtu.be/rlFpHriMd8A
It is not as big a task as many think for “The Darnel “ to turn around the 13 point difference which separated us from them last season .
They only need to win their 2 home matches against us and pick up 1 extra point at home against the other SPFL sides.
They already have a 1 point advantage.
Arrogance , complacency and incompetence on the recruitment front ,will see an end to the quest for 10.
TT
The Glorious Balance Sheet.
Rangers debt in 2007 was £6m. It rose to £36m by 2008 as result of spending £30m on players reduced to £10m by sales.
In the spring of 2008 the BTC bills dropped through the letter box. Bills they could not pay but they gambled on CL money to reduce the debt as it did to £18m by 2011, when on losing to Malmo and Maribor it stuck there and the bank stepped in.
Then HMRC stepped in to put them into administration. You cannot surely be advocating we do what they did?
The current position is in no way similar in that CL money is subject to qualifying and there is no bank ready to allow a 6 fold increase in debt.
So the danger does not come from them. It comes from us. Complacency for a start and if we do not strengthen the squad by 31st August somebody should be getting his jotter.
TGBS,
We have our glorious CEO to thank for royally screwing up 3 transfer windows that were defining moments for the club and each set us back several years. The latest will be the most damaging with our best manager since MON or even Stein feeling shafted.
Lawwell has been briefing against Brendan ( although Paul67 latest leader is relatively neutral the accusing finger is still pointing to the manager).
Dermot knows where this is coming from and Lawwell needs to be taken to task for undermining the manager.
Across the celtic web the real villain is clear —-Lawwell ; although there is a recognition that Brendan has made some poor signings.
It’s now clear the 2 men don’t trust each other ; certainly Brendan has every reason not to. Who does Dermot choose ?
Probably at this moment he forces both to work together ; but he knows Lawwell has to go. His failures have cost the club in excess of £100M.
It would not be quite the celebration of Jock Browns demise before the match versus Dundee ; however just like Lennon ( who Lawwell forced out ) ; it’s in the best interests of all concerned —-especially Celtic.
TINY TIM
Can you give the lottery numbers for Saturday please?
Oh and the transfer window is still open.
9.29 Auldheid
I couldn’t agree more.
But it won’t happen.
None of the board will be sacked and we can’t afford the circa £5m to sack Brendan or the fallout that would come from it .
TT
I would imagine that’s how the Hun will play at CP, compact ; defend deep and hope for the counter attack. Disagree about moreorless being a decent player, he will run about and get away with physical stuff in our league but at the end of the day a brutal player and has no quality. His misses are gems though?
Philboy
You seem to attack almost all of my posts with smart arsed comments .
Geeze peace .
The world loves children , but not cheeky ones.
TT
TINY TIM
Attack your posts!!!!
I don’t read most of them!
C’MON THE CELTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tiny Tim
I’m not so sure. There is a lot of anger now and that can only grow if it is not addressed.
There is a lot that can be done in next few weeks to turn things round and not to do so would be a dereliction of duty towards both supporters and shareholders.
Just got round to opening my post there. Had a brochure from the Pavilion telling me about their upcoming shows.
Celtic “The Musical” has a full page professional advert on page two(I’m going) Looked through the rest of the upcoming attractions and got to say there wasn’t a lot of appeal to distract me from a Saturday night watching Strictly.
Put the brochure down and noticed on the back page-half the page, was a show called “rally roon the raingers”
starring Graco the big fat Hun that kids on he’s a wrestler and Stephen Purdon the wee oddity from RiverCity.
They have published some of the songs that they will be singing/foaming at the mouth during the performance. Got to say I know most of them by heart apart from “4 lads had a dream” Anybody ? Even any lurking huns know that one ?
What drew my attention though was the big showstoppers Hello hello & No surrender. Are these not secterian chants
Watched a bit of huns game. Hard to evaluate as Maribor were mince-abor ,but huns look better than in previous seasons. It’s not just Europe we need to strengthen for . Domestic complacency would be an even bigger crime. Especially when the MIB’s are primed and ready.
PRETONPANS BHOYS
I agree this will be the huns blueprint in the first encounter.
With our lack of goals in the last season except against them they will be confident their improved defense and organisation will hold off our slow build up and attack.
They also may feel if they play a tight defensive shape like tonight we will be vulnerable to fast breakaways and dead balls.
They had 5 booked tonight but are confident a robust/dirty approach will be tolerated by Scottish refs.
Will be an interesting to see how many fouls and cautions they will have in Europe compared to SPL?
This will help them with a small squad as not much game time will be lost.
If hyping up Sevco helps Brendan secure funds then excellent. As it is they’re well organised and limited up front. That’ll be enough in Europa qualifiers and against most teams in Scotland. But not against us. They’re nowhere near us. We’ll beat them comfortably.
Galatasary seemingly struggling to give financial guarantees to Man City and or Denayer as US sanctions cause the Turkish lira to fall heavily.
Looks like Trump’s gonna come up trumps for the bhoys, you couldnae mak it up. Kinda sums up the past week for us, just wish the last week or so had been fake news.
What about James McCarthy, is he back from his serious injury yet. 27 how long left on his deal?
Tiny Tim & Philboy
I know both of you fine Celtic men. I first met TinyTim returning from 2-1 in Amsterdam 35 odd years ago. He hisnae changed a bit.
The Kingdom Rocks.
God rest the Queen of Soul
Aretha RIP
RESPECT
Please feel free to grass Stephen Purdon to the BBC at any time of your choosing
Sevco? Well-organised dross really. They played alright tonight but Maribor were absolutely toothless. Morelos is dross, Lafferty is dross too, assuming they get him. Their midfield is stodgy with no flair.
They could win the league but if we keep most of our best players fit we should do fine. We’ll need to see the inside and outside in the next two weeks.
ITSCALLEDTHEMALVINAS on 16TH AUGUST 2018 9:49 PM
What drew my attention though was the big showstoppers Hello hello & No surrender. Are these not secterian chants
=======================
Really!!!!!!
DD
I met TINY TIM at the CQN golf day some years back.
A lovely, generous ghuy.
Hope you are well!
George Ezra tour tickets on sale. Get in fast.
This kid is excellent. Paradise should be played every game in Paradise.
Love and Peace.
Rest in peace Aretha!
For all in need on CQN,
I’ll say a little prayer for you.
God bless.
Fan
No way would they get five yellows in our league in a game like that. I do think we are still miles away from them even we mibs however we were poor last year against agricultural ‘park the bus’ sides at CP. Hope it was a one season mishap……
Auldheid 9.29pm
I’m absolutely not advocating that we spend more money than we earn and stiff creditors and the taxman (and taxpayer) like Rangers did. That is immoral and makes a mockery of sport.
I’m questioning why we spent £5m on incoming transfers to replenish a fading team at a time when we had guaranteed CL income.
I’m illustrating that the current reluctance to spend money on players, attributed to CL qualification being a gamble, is nothing new. That same reluctance existed when we had guaranteed access to CL funds.
Complacency and cash loving is nothing new where this board and CEO are concerned and I would argue is a factor in our current predicament regarding CL qualification. Perhaps with investment at the right time in past years we would have not been a CL yo-yo club, in one year, out for a couple, we might have worked our coefficient to a position where we gained automatic entry like the champions of Switzerland. Another smallish marginalised country in the context of UEFA and their cherished tv markets.
incidentally the only people who raise a peep about Rangers cheating their way to CL/ UEFA monies in those years 2009 to 2011are the fans, the Celtic board keep shtum even when confronted with irrefutable evidence of false declarations and SFA chicanery re taxes being due at UEFA licence deadlines.
Indeed they even didn’t object to the “heavily conflicted” Campbell ogilvie being reelected SFA top man after the Huns cheating and SFA complicity in same became public knowledge. Despite Peter Lawwell being on the SFA professional game board at time of ogilvie’s re-election.
And every spurious reason under the sun has been trotted out on these pages over the last 5 years to justify that silence.
The keeping the powder dry. The fear of reprisals against employees. The working away quietly in the background. The never interrupt your enemy when they’re making a mistake etc. It doesn’t wash any more.
Completely agree with you that a P45 is in order should the squad not be strengthened come 31st August. Fact is it was easier to strengthen the squad through June and July when all markets for incoming and outgoing transfers were open and good trading could be done with the carrot of potential CL football to offer signing targets.
Now we have less available markets to sell our dead wood and scabs (Boyata) to and have no CL football to offer and have a 2 week window in order to scrabble about to strengthen.
You know as well as I do that what will come in during this time will most likely be players who can’t make the 25 man cut for their EPL parent club.
It’s certainly not as conducive to squad strengthening as identifying targets in spring and securing them in June and early July.
Someone posted tonight that since Brendan Rodgers has joined the club, the share price has doubled. Effectively they said, Rodgers, has added £75m to the value of the club.
For those who are about to say aye but Rangers … this is the highest the share price has been for almost 20 years.
Phil
Stop work for a week tomorrow. Looking forward to my trip to England this week. A concert in my favourite music city in the world Madchester. Take care pal.
YNWA
DD
Enjoy!!
And don’t worry about the ‘Tic!
We’ll be fine!
Take care and God bless!
Auldheid
Totally agree. We have this in our control. Until the window closes. No changes and we are in a spot of self imposed bother.
BGFC
I know it- you know it.
Just moving the “story down the line” HH !
MULLET AND CO 2 on 16TH AUGUST 2018 10:10 PM
Someone posted tonight that since Brendan Rodgers has joined the club, the share price has doubled. Effectively they said, Rodgers, has added £75m to the value of the club.
———-
Been thinking about those bemoaning the failure to sell Boyata. Worth remembering that he would be worth next to nothing if it wasn’t for Brendan.
the hun zombie monkeys are still a shite football team.
the fear in the posts on here is bloody ludicrous.
celtic will prevail
St Stivs…it’s not ludicrous, and it’s not fear…don’t you think they have improved under Gerrard? And don’t you think we have stalled a wee bit? I doubt we will be complacent, so that’s a positive…again, I’m glad the first encounter is at CP…
Phil
I never worry about the Leather Belts.
I have eternal optimisim syndrome when it comes to Celtic
YNWA
Braga eliminated on away goals by Zorya Luhansk.
Legia put out by a team from Luxembourg.
Pot 1 seeds besiktas and zenit scraping through in the end but needing injury time and extra time to get there.
This Europa League might be a bit tasty this year.
We might end up crossing paths with Rapid Vienna again should we both get through the play-offs. We will be pot 2 and rapid pot 3.
Call me nasty but if the Huns were to scrape through I’d really like Zagreb to parachute into the EL and for the zombies to be sent back to Croatia. That would be ahem interesting.
SAINT STIVS on 16TH AUGUST 2018 10:21 PM
the hun zombie monkeys are still a shite football team.
——-
They lined up with Halliday, Tavernier, Jack, Candyass, Morelos and Murphy. The sum of the parts is much greater than the parts themselves.
I definitely don’t fear the hun ,but our complacency thus far does send a wee shiver down my spine.
I’ve come to kinda enjoy skelpings and I don’t want any close encounters of the unwanted kind. Tuesday should have been a wake-up call. I hope the snoozers at CP hear the alarm.
Anyway, Bawbaws time.