This is one of those articles I’ve been meaning to do for a couple of weeks, and now with Celtic and Sevco in the final qualifying round I figure it’s time to put it out there.
The question is simply this; is it in our best interests – as far as ten in a row goes – for Sevco to go through to the Europa League Groups or for them to go out?
By its very nature, this is a divisive issue.
Celtic fans will have strong opinions on it one way or the other, and I’d like to feature some of those views in a follow up piece, after Thursday, and with the aid of a poll on the matter, which I’m going to put on the final page of this article.
In a normal year, this would be cut and dried; we’d all want to see the Ibrox club go out of Europe at the earlier opportunity, and indeed I’m going to declare myself right now and tell you that I still want them to go out on Thursday night … but I can’t pretend it’s black and white.
There are several things to consider here, both pros and cons.
I want to cover the main ones from each … and at the end of the piece you guys can have a vote and make the decision.
I’ll check the comments on The CelticBlog group and a handful of others from elsewhere and I’ll do a follow-up piece if we get enough votes (anything over 2000 I think will justify us doing a second article) …
I am going to be very interested in what people think here, because although nothing that happens at Ibrox will be half as important as what we do ourselves in the league, it is clear that their general health is going to be an issue and is going to be a factor in how all this shakes out.
Like I said, I am going to be interested to see what people think.
Without further ado then, let’s get on to the pros and cons of this …
For the sake of argument, we’ll have the pros representing why we should want them to go out … and the cons representing why we might just want them to go through.
Pro: It Would Hurt Their Momentum To Go Out
Don’t underestimate the role momentum plays in winning titles.
Sevco have the arrogant swagger again of a club that thinks it’s the dogs nuts because of their win against the Dutch the other night. If they go through against Galatasaray their players will take an awful lot of heart from it, and their club will take a big lift from it regardless of how their game tomorrow has ended up.
But if they lose then Gerrard suddenly looks like a fighter with a glass jaw, reeling from the last big punch, and on the way down.
Part of the Sevco fans belief in this guy up until now has come from this idea that he knows how to win huge games in Europe and that somehow proves that his record in domestic football is an aberration and down to luck and/or bad referees.
Don’t underestimate the importance of them seeing that illusion shattered, or the damage it will do to the dressing room morale.
I’ll cover that again later on.
You do not want Sevco getting up any sort of momentum here, so every bad result is something we should broadly welcome, even when it doesn’t directly affect us.
Them going out of Europe before the Groups means they’ve already regressed from last season … and that after spending a fortune they didn’t have to spend.
Momentum, once lost, is very difficult to regain.
If they find themselves in the same place they did from January onwards, with the feeling it’s all slipping away, it could go fast.
Con: They Would Have Plenty Of Free Time Which We Won’t Get
One of the most obvious downsides of their going out would be that it would free up time for them to prepare better for domestic football.
It would give their players time between games which we wouldn’t get.
The situation will be bad enough, but let’s not forget we already have a league fixture to find a place for and the possibility of two Scottish Cup ties which they don’t need to worry about.
Add six Group games onto that, and you see why it becomes an issue.
We’re already facing a major fixture backlog … that only becomes a problem if they are not facing the same sort of thing.
Remove from them the necessity of having to play those matches, and they can rest people up, get players fit and relax on those long Thursday nights when we’re travelling hither, thither and yon.
We’ve got a bigger, deeper bench, but that’s part of the point; you want their smaller squad tested to the full, you want them playing three games a week, you want them dead on their feet … that could be a huge advantage later on in this campaign, and that advantage is gone if they go out early.
It’ll be our squad which needs rotating and certain players wrapped in cotton wool.
In any other season this would not be a great concern, but the ten in a row campaign is one where every advantage might be magnified … do we really want them to have this one?
Shouldn’t we want them in a fixture scheduling nightmare, especially if we’re going to be in one of them anyway?
Pro: It Would Stop Us Having To Read Reams Of News About How Brilliant They Are
On the surface of it, this is one of those “come on James, who really cares?” type ones … but I would suggest we’re wrong to see it that way.
Their club already gets acres of positive press coverage, and that does translate into confidence boosts and all manner of other little psychological advantages.
It’s fair, of course, to point out that this often bleeds into arrogance with them, which doesn’t help one bit, but for the most part I think it has an effect the other way.
If they go out, the press has to focus on their domestic stuff only, and the first questions will have to be asked about Gerrard and the finances.
It won’t be Year Zero coverage, but at least it will spare us all the talk about them having the makings of a great team and about how Gerrard’s influence has once again netted them a pot of gold in qualification cash.
The reason this is so important actually has nothing to do with them; it’s to do with us.
Part of the febrile online atmosphere on Thursday night and yesterday was because they won convincingly in Holland and we struggled in Riga.
The hysterical media coverage of those results has convinced a lot of our own fans that Sevco is better than they are … we need to nip that in the bud right now, because that belief amplifies the noise around our own club and the criticism it gets.
Con: Sevco Will Have Saturday Football, Which Means We’re Chasing Them …
If both clubs go through, both clubs play football on a Sunday.
If one of us goes out, that club will play on the Saturday.
That creates a psychological advantage if the club playing on Saturday gets its nose in front of in the league.
We still have a game in hand to fit in … we might find ourselves chasing them a while.
Whilst I don’t think it’s a particularly bad problem – because we’ve shown that we can cope with almost everything that is thrown at us in recent years – who needs additional pressure in such an important year? It would be better not to have that up for grabs.
And yes, it can definitely work both ways; a side which plays on the Saturday always knows they could be giving their rivals a lift for the following day, and if we’re relentless enough that creates pressure of its own of course … but I don’t like the idea all the same.
The irony is that we’d have had that advantage ourselves had we only done what was required of us and made it to the Champions League Groups …
Saturday football would have been the norm for the remainder of the campaign.
It’s just another way we’ve shot ourselves in the foot … nobody likes Thursday football, it creates a weird lopsided first half of the campaign.
Pro: Some In Their Squad Will Get Restless And Want To Move
The joys of Scottish football are entirely lost on a lot of players, so of course there’s an issue if it’s all footballers have to look forward to in the remainder of a campaign.
If Sevco goes out, there might be real pressure from inside their squad from players looking to leave.
And this will dovetail nicely with their need to sell … and there will be additional difficulties in attracting replacements, even if they had enough cash to make signings.
If their dressing room reacts negatively to a European exit prior to the Groups we might well see a real show, as things start to come apart quickly over there.
For openers, Morelos can kiss goodbye to his Colombian prospects.
Kent can whistle Dixie for his England caps.
Barisic might find that with just Scottish football left to “prove himself” in that his own international prospects are put on hold.
The idea that Sevco’s players are worth all this money is largely down to their exploits in Europe … it certainly has nothing to do with their serial failures in Scotland.
The players themselves know this, and it’s what they hoped would get them their big moves.
Exiting from Europe this early might start the real drum-banging from inside the club.
If it were our club who went out early, you know the media would be doing it for them.
Pro: It Would Present Them With Devastating Financial Choices
Two pros in a row here, but don’t think I’m trying to make the case I’m most in favour of.
This is the obvious issue, as we’ve all talked about it many times.
If Sevco does not go through they will face some of the most devastating financial choices in their history.
How serious might this be to them?
This depends on just how deep the hole already is, and whether they will be able to sell a top earner to offset some of the damage.
The club is going to find itself in serious peril, regardless … that seems absolutely certain.
The runs in Europe are all that have kept the Ibrox lights on in recent years, and to be deprived of that kind of money in the coming year would have been devastating even before Gerrard was allowed to ratchet up the wage bill yet again in the run-up to this season.
Sevco simply cannot carry the kind of losses they would incur if they didn’t have Group Stage football.
It would badly skew their FFP criteria as well, because although UEFA is waiving the effects for clubs adversely affected by the global health crisis they might not be quite so willing in the case of teams who have continued to overspend.
Lack of Group Stage football will force that club to finally confront the decisions and choices it has made in the course of the last few years … and that will not benefit them.
Con: The Financial Consequences Will Almost Certainly Be Waiting Anyway
With no fans in the stadiums, clubs are going to lose millions whether they are in Europe or not.
Sevco will be no exception, and the road to financial ruin is one the club is almost certainly already on, and the pittance available from Europa League football, even in a good season, probably wouldn’t have been of any help to them.
Our club will probably make the Groups; eve we aren’t going to get the kind of returns we would in a good year, even with our 10,000 more season tickets.
Think on it this way; if we bring out a digital viewing package for these games we will certainly not be able to charge the kind of prices we would have asked fans to pay for tickets.
On top of that, we sold a full complement of season tickets, but there was still angst over those fans who might have bought two or three of them for a household but who can all sit round the telly and watch a single subscription without any significant refund.
When it comes to Europa League games, those folk will buy one package for the household and the same will apply for extended families if the lockdown is lifted in time.
Add this to the loss of concession stands, merchandising and all the other income streams we won’t have access to for the three home matches and you have to wonder if those three matches even make commercial sense.
In other words, Sevco going through might not even help them in financial terms … they might go through and still have to face up to hard times and hard reality.
In fact, I think that’s a certainty and if they don’t sell in this window they’ll be lucky to limp through the campaign.
So, Do We Want Them To Win Or Not?
Overall, I want them to go out, but I understand that others will see that as thinking based only on how I feel about them as a club and not in the greater interests of Celtic; I do think that those greater interests are best served by seeing Sevco’s confidence rocked and their manager forced to work his way through a domestic slog where he knows he’ll get no real credit.
I think it advantages us to have their players frustrated at not having a bigger stage to work on.
I think the financial costs would be momentous, and I think some in the media would have to cover it; Keith Jackson hinted at it just this week.
But I understand the flip-side as well; I understand those who think that it would help us if they were also engaged playing six matches instead of having plenty of free time between games, especially as it would tax their pitiful squad to the maximum.
I’ll be interested in finding out what the rest of you think though, and if it warrants it I’ll definitely do a follow-up article on Friday once we know how things have ended up.
The floor is yours folks … vote in the poll below.
Do We Want Sevco To Go Through On Thursday Or To Go Out?Out On Their Backsides
Through Helps Us More
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