So we know where our early season fate will be decided; in Denmark.
One of the toughest questions we will face – whether or not we can guarantee Group Stage football – will be made clear to us over the course of two matches against their second placed team.
Normally this would be a source of happiness for fans; this is a navigable time.
We have been spared the horror of a trip to Galatasaray or the re-enactment of an ancient grudge, neither of which would have been ideal. We got the most favourable draw we could.
We should be confident of beating a path through that particular thicket. We should be very confident indeed of that. Yet doubt remains because we are colossally unprepared.
The news that we’re trying to get a deal for Charlie Wyke over the line on a free is hardly inspiring; he’s never played at this level or anything like it. We are badly short at the back … Erik Sviatchenko is apparently on our list of targets for the season.
He plays for FC Midtjylland, so if that was on someone’s list of bright ideas you can just forget it.
There is absolutely no chance of them selling him to us prior to the tie, so if that was our plan we’re back to the drawing board with it and no further forward.
We have nobody at right back. We are down two midfielders.
We have no-one to play on the left wing. The goalkeeper situation needs sorting … and we’re down to mere weeks before the game and the registration deadline, and to top it all off we have no idea who’ll be sitting in the dugout for the game because we don’t know that Postecoglou will have his licence in time.
So the draw is favourable. The conditions are definitely not.
The board’s scandalous dithering and their lack of joined up thinking has left us in one hell of a state and if we go out in this round, to a team that in any other year we shouldn’t even be considering losing to, then all Hell deserves to be paid at our club.
It is a disgraceful situation for us to be in.
We should be optimistic here … but God, there is still such a Hell of a lot to do.