It is always instructive, when you’ve been as good as we are today, to try and grasp why the opposition doesn’t believe you’re a good team. If you look at our domestic form for the last year it looks obvious that we’re a very good side, doesn’t it? When you watch us that becomes even clearer. So how can anyone possibly kid themselves?
The straw they clutch is our “European form.”
There is an audio clip of that absolute goon Keevins doing the rounds on their forums, lauding their European form and slamming ours. He repeated the old mantra of the “embarrassment” of us going out of three European competitions last season.
He talked in particular about “losing to a team from the Arctic Circle” as though this were a major humiliation.
His contempt for clubs in other countries about which he knows the sum total of nil continues to astonish me. His arrogance, when he is so absolutely thick, would blow your mind.
It’s tiresome having to debate this. It really bores me, because our European failure really boils down to those games more than anything else.
The Midjytlland result was nothing that we didn’t expect, a result not one of us acknowledges as anything to be in the least bit concerned about. This team was still being built. The team wasn’t even up to speed domestically.
But following our Champions League exit we stormed past two very decent sides to reach the Group Stages of the Europa League, and got a nightmarish draw for a side still in the process of growing. How did we do in that group? Three wins in six … and we gave Betis the scare of the century in Spain and could have got something in Germany.
And still we went out. I love how our critics never mention that we got more points in going out of the Europa League than their favourite club managed going through to the next round, which they did with a mere eight points to our nine.
Third place in the Europa League Groups drops you into the Conference League knock-out stages. We will most certainly not be the last side to do that, after also having fallen out of the Champions League. I continue to ask the question I always have;
If we had gone out of the Europa League entirely, thereby only getting knocked out of two European competitions instead of three, would that have been better? Would that have suited these people more? Would their narrative have been less bitter?
The puny weapons with which they try to assail us … honest to God. On top of everything else, if people inside Celtic prioritised the title over trying to progress in the third tier European tournament and chasing a pipedream of glory, then I can wholly understand that. Bodo were the shock troops of that tournament. They had beaten Roma 6-1 during the Groups.
They went on to knock AZ out. That team who annihilated Dundee Utd last week. Who we had earlier beaten comfortably. In the semi-final they beat Roma again, before the Italians (who went on to win the tournament) were finally able to get the best of them. It took Mourinho until his fourth attempt though, and he too lost twice along the way.
We won six times in Europe last season. And “went out of three competitions.” The Ibrox club won seven times and got to a final. It’s like a cosmic joke, and it is a statistic which the media is more than happy to roundly ignore.
The truth is, our European record was actually very decent last season for a team that was very much a work in progress. We are still a work in progress, but we’re so far forward compared to where we were that the truth is nobody knows what we might do this year. I do know that we are all excited to find out.
In the meantime, the deluded continue to tell themselves that how we’re doing in the domestic game, where leagues and cups are actually won, isn’t a reflection on how good we are as a team. That takes some doing.
It will be good to burst that fantasy bubble.
We’ll settle for 8-0 v Real …..for Celtic.
I totally agree with u it’s insulting the way them so called journalists are so biased and nobody calls it out….cowardice isn’t the word for it..fucking speak up hh
I take solace in the jabs they’re taking with respect to our European record, even if it’s highly distorted and out of context. They simply have no comeback, no reply, to our domestic dominance. 5 games, 5 wins, combined score of 21-1, and already beat the teams likely to finish 3rd and 4th (if not 2nd!) while not even getting out of 2nd gear for a couple of those games. Abada has been a bit part player this year, and he got a hat trick in his first start. Kyogo had a hat trick before halftime. They’re scoring from open play in twos and threes, and scoring from set plays every week as well. And if our new winger is as good as advertised, this team is still improving in both quality and depth. It’s still early in the season, but this team may very well be better than the Invincibles team. I think the talent level is better, especially defensively, and the consistency with which they’re playing is also better. That Invincibles team dropped 8 points. I would be surprised if they drop 5 this year.
There’s also a sense of karma coming regarding the jabs at European records, as though none of them watched Liverpool yesterday. Sands and Barasic are going to be massively exposed against Liverpool assuming they manage to stay on the pitch for the full 90 minutes with a competent referee. I seem to remember an old story about stones and glass houses…
Forget liverpool! Against us they are in for a tanking!!
Why these comments are brought up is because they are the ones that are scared.of Celtic
Rangers think they are No1 of course they are not ,and they are showing bravado saying we are hopeless in Europe, so can they tell me the European cup that we won in 1967 was not reality .
The Celtic of today is and I don’t want to take from the team that won the European cup that was 1967 ,today we are better equipped to play these teams in their own back yard
Celtic may not go any further than the quarter finals but we live in the real world
Not servco fantasy land PSG were rotten last week a decent team would have been all over them now we will see how far they get I hope they remember we have won the European cup .
Each game we win this guys bitterness towards us reeks more than the bags of dug sh*te piled up on the litter bins
Just praying we get beat so he can get stuck into Ange
A horrible c*nt that’s hanging out with too many huns on that nonsense radio show
Super sleakit had three goes at the fish supper cup three failures not a word of criticism came his way from scotlands sevco shame but it cost them big time at the end up. Media shame
They are scared and so they should be
What a decrepit auld wanker like Keevins says means nothing to me. Who cares, why quote him, in fact why am I even replying to your article, I must have nothing better to do with my time I guess, and I wish I hadn’t made this meaningless comment, it’s beneath me.
Celtic have been on fire in Scotland this season.. today was just perfection. Our play was scintillating, I’ve been on YouTube about 4 times, watching it since the final whistle. I think this could be the year, were we get our mojo back in Europe. I will give them there due, they have been decent in Europe, I actually think they are better in Europe, than they are in Scotland. But our group has giving us a very good chance, real will run away with it, but 3rd place an absolute minimum, as I would consider 4th a failure. But second is well within our grasp. Ps Jack Ross as much as it pains me to say, as think he is a decent guy, he surely can’t last with that result.
The ” posion” are about to find out big time our team will demolish them next week( well if referee applies the ruless” these huns actually think we get looked after!??scrutinise any ref with a saints name! Couldnt make it up while we had to deal with known hun fans season ticket holders at that! Officiating us as I stated before Dallas the son put off the tv after Celtic scored against the poison in Daziel golf club as he walked out in defeat huns are good at that! Cowards most I ever met , plus madden, mclean , roberson yesterday shit scared to apply the rules! Cheating basically! Oh in colllum had given them plenty against us penalties he never saw and Jozo sent off for nothing on that tory incompetent ” red card red card red card”! Oh and dallas senior making sure they won the league in 99 while sending off Maher and giving a penalty for absolutely nothing ! Well not on pitch maybe cause the coin incident no condoning that be that was another disgraceful decision he knew he get away with oh and then he got sacked for sectarian emails!! The dougie dougie incident there a million stories as big Jock always said about them, and these shitebags have the gaul to mention refs! Ha ha imagine they had to put up with what we had ! Then it makes us stronger and unlike der hun we never let our great club die!! Utter cowards that turned their back in the age of internet banking to!! Nothing but a vehicle for hate it’s that new club like old but that’s it none of them are totally invested as they showed on 2012! Roll on sunday for another ” hunskelping”!
Also after we dismantled this average team at PARADISE in February remember the night they shat it! Well they had the very very lucky fortune of German crowd restrictions which we all know they love! Covid ghost league champs are the poisin, anyway this was never ever mentioned in the joke msn in brigadoon but with a full crowd in Dortmund they would have collapsed like they always did that result and massive helped them no end, butl on sunday after ross county , they going get a tanking!
Celtic were easy targets for hun propaganda pre Ange, some of it well warranted as we voiced ourselves. Last season, pre January was the beginnings of working development of a team. The post January run-in was the makings of a squad good enough to win a cup and the SPL Champions in an entertaining style and of further progress to come.
This season here it is. That promise is coming to fruition, the squad has strengthened and progressed and is now seasoned. We are surely now ready to grace the CL with as squad we can be proud of, a squad that’s going to develop still further
So did Shug expect us to win the Conference League??? Just asking because otherwise there was absolutely no other way that we wouldn’t have gone out of 3 competitions!! Anyhow the past is the past and the present and future certainly looks green and white to me!!!
It’ll be easy to silence the criticism if we get some decent results. We are in a group with some decent teams and the current CL holders though, so let’s not pretend we’re not up against it. Sad to say, but getting out of groups in CL is probably the exception rather than the norm for Scottish teams in the current era. The CL/EL gap is huge. As Sevco are about to find out.
I’m quietly confident our team will do us proud, whatever the end result is. And I’m pretty confident if we take the game to them next week we will horse them. Final 2 games v them last season we sat back and it suited them, so I hope we don’t make that mistake again.
We are not a defence minded outfit and have looked particularly vulnerable and clumsy when we allow teams forward possession. Utd could’ve had the ball in the net twice early in that first half. Its difficult to comprehend but for us maybe continuing with an attack minded approach, maintaining ball retention, is our best form of defence