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Celtic Off To Estonia Or Gibraltar. An Easy Draw But Tough Games Lie Ahead.

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Celtic faces a trip to either Estonia or Gibraltar in the Champions League, and as I said last week the clock is ticking down towards the registration deadline for those games.

The draw itself is easy enough, but tougher games are coming. The precise details will have to wait until Flora Tallinn and Lincoln have played out their first round tie, but in the event we go through there will certainly be tougher games ahead. We need to be better prepared for those games than we are now. We’ve got to sign some players and bed them in.

The third round draw will almost certainly present us with a tougher challenge, but the beauty of that is that if we get through it we automatically qualify for the Europa League groups at worst. Get through the final qualifying round and we’re back where we belong.

But the team isn’t ready for that yet.

Brendan will give us a different philosophy but we need more than that. We need some fresh blood, and the common lament of the support is that we’ve yet to add that crucial ingredient to our team.

We have a few pre-season friendlies against top teams coming up. They will give us a good grounding before these games, but woe betide we pick up injuries to key players in them. Some areas of the team are still painfully short of personnel and the need to get that sorted out is acute. We do seem to be making moves; the papers have us bidding for strikers and defenders in England on nearly a daily basis.

It’s important to get one of them over the line, but it’s equally important it be the right one.

As to the opposition, I know the sum total of nil about either team.

We also have no history against teams from these countries, having never faced a team from either one. On paper this should be a simple exercise, and a good warm-up.

Brendan couldn’t have asked for a better start.

The first leg will be away from home, which means that our title party is put off again, but that’s of little consequence at the moment. The Champions League always whets the appetite of the fans, and even a tie as straightforward as this is exciting in its own way.

This is where our season starts.

What a season it’s going to be.

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