Celtic v HJK Helsinki - Wed, 1 Aug K/O 19.45 - Live on Premier Sports.

Well if we hadn't * up, then you wouldn't have had a sniff. It's not how football works.

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a merry christmas.

 

It should be him but it never will be we all know this .

Fantastic assist from the big man again tho

 

We were dominant in possession.

We werent direct enough though. Too many sideways passes and not enough crosses. Espesh the second half.

Lost a silly goal.

We should still be good enough to go through.

Of course, we tend to not do things easily.

 

Thought we didnt look ready for it, way too sloppy and far too many mistakes and poor passing, a better side would have punished us.

2-1 is always a dodgy score nut looking on the bright side if we get a goal I cant see them getting 3.

Other than the GB giving it all game and on decent form I thought it was a very poor atmosphere tonight, way, way too many empty seats in the North Stand and back of the JSL in those corporate sections.

We needed that goal against us to get our tempo up again.

Helsinki looked poor for this level of competition so I hope that we can finish them off next week with no scares.

Apart from his goal I thought Hooper was poor again tonight

 

I've been in this forum for about a week and have not seen that poll, and I've seen messages that indicate otherwise. Maybe it's the 6% that don't think that.

And as for you who blamed me for arrogance. That can't be farther away from the truth. I know HJK aren't a good side, especially this year. Last year was awesome, and I recon that team would've beat this years Celtic. Anyways, i'm getting sidetracked with this speculation.

As I've written my previous messages I didn't represent HJK, I didn't even write as a HJK fan. I wrote what I think about Celtic. You can't deny they aren't a strong europe side anymore. And this was only my opinion, you may freely feel otherwise

Anyways, I shouldn't give a * of what you think. Football is about what happens on the pitch, and more importantly, the final result. Ballpossession doesn't mean * if you can't turn your chances into goals. The best example would be Chelsea-Barcelona in the CL last season. Barcelona dominated possession wise, but failed to score, and lost against Chelsea. And thus, I think Chelsea is the better team.

You dominated today ball possession wise, and slightly won. Hence you are the better team.

One of my big flaws is that I can't stand people thinking differently than me Working on it.

 

It seemed to me that in the latter part of the second half the instructions were not to cross it in to the middle though Kemosabe.

We had no one willing to get on the end of them.

That's why we seemed to run out of ideas a bit. A good few times we hit the byline and no one was in the box and the ball went back to the midfielder on the edge of the box.

We have no plan B because we have no natural striker who wants to go in where it hurts to get his head on the ball.

 

You do know that if you beat us you get another qualifier for the champions league? And if you've put us out, that'll honestly make other teams take note of your team (believe that or not). There are possibilities of getting teams about the same level as us as well. As you've pointed out, we will have the opportunity to counter and with our fast players, Samaras and Forrest on the wings, we have the pace and quality to do some damage. Let's hope for a good game and of course, a Celtic win

 

I can't remember everything he said but he was talking a lot about how playing a straight 4 man midfield in Europe isn't a good idea and how rigid Celtic's play looked at times because they lined up that way. He said we were playing too much in straight lines in the first half, which I agreed with.

He was also saying that Celtic would have been better playing 5 men in the midfield and having a '2 tier' midfield - eg. 4-2-3-1 or something like that. He felt that HJK were able to play around our centre mids too easily at times because they outnumbered us in that area of the pitch.

He was also getting quite frustrated in the second half when they only had 1 man up front but our two full-backs were staying behind the ball when we had possession.

I thought it was really interesting. He talked much more about tactics and went into a bit more detail than you hear from other managers when they're on the radio or TV.

I know he can be a bit of a bawbag with some of the comments he makes at times but it was a good listen tonight.

 

Just back from the game, still buzzing great nite!! Frustrating first half and really bad start but came good. As already stated not direct enough and really should have done a bit better tonight but hopeful for next Wednesday.

The Green Brigade where * amazing!!! Some job lads, loved the no limits songs

 

I noticed the empty corporate seats as well. Didnt look good. * prawn sandwich brigade.

Atmosphere was good I thought, lots of apprehension at times. I felt we had, daft as it sounds, too much possession, and this is what made us slack. It was only when they put a little pressure on that we responded. Like when they scored, we upped our game.

If that is the best that Helsinki can play, we should beat them next week. Or at least not lose.

 

if you're working on it, here's an easy one for you to get started with... I disagree with you, I think it was Bayern who beat Chelsea, not Barca

 

Finland is a tiny football country. For us, winning you and securing a spot in the EUROPA LEAGUE is as important and strongly done as making the CL.

You do know that if we beat you we get to the Europa League?

And as always, lets just hope for a good game

 

Just back from watching the game tonight ...a few points...Lennon has still not learnt anything...Samaras,Brown,latesubs,playing players out of position..it just goes on and on..most of the fans can see things a good 10 mins before Lennon does..
Another thing ,we knew ages ago that we could possibly be playing a team in the middle of theire season so that is no excuse..fail to prepare...prepare to fail..play the guys who can play soccer..Commons,McCourt,Kayal and the rest in theire proper positions and we would be winning these matches comfortably..Brown Samaras,Stokes...even Forrest should all be looking at a stint on the bench to shake em up..its harder to get dropped from Lennons team for some players than to get on it for others..Wake up Lennon...its in these matchs you will be judged this year..

 

Umm. Not sure if you're only messing with me, but anyways, let me refresh your mind lol:

Barca played Chelsea in the semi-finals. Barca dominated but lost, hence Chelsea was the better team.

Bayern played Chelsea in the Finals and lost, Chelsea won. Even that game proves my point, Bayern dominated ball possession wise and chances created etc. But they didn't score, Chelsea did. That to me, once again, means that Chelsea was a better team.

 

Yeah that's what I'm saying, at least the Europa. Being an optimist isn't always a bad thing.... hope for the champions league, like we will be. The money would do you wonders, like it would us.

 

Yeah was only messing

 

Samaras and Brown? What about them? Both had very good games in my opinion.

 

Thought we were excellent tonight in the second half. The thing that * me off is that it took until we conceded a goal to get going. After that, on another night, it could've been 4 or 5. Wanyama for me had a very poor game at CB, and Forrest's deliveries were too often blocked. We're crying out to get CB sorted, and we could've done with the target man as Sammy didn't seem in the mood for winning headers in the box. IMO not sorting these positions out will be responsible for getting us eliminated if we don't progress to the next round.

Helsinki looked very ordinary but did look to have tricky players that could do something in the final third. Their right sided players had the beating of Izzy on more than a few occasions in the first half which was worrying at the time.

I think we can get through, but * off to concede the away goal and Helsinki away could be a totally different proposition. In all honesty I can't see them not scoring against us as the centre of our defence is shocking to say the least and I don't mean the individuals but the unit. They may also have decided to just contain us after they nicked the away goal so going on tonight's performance may be a bit of a false sense of security. However our away win in the Champions League has got to come some time. I just hope we don't do a Utrecht as a goal away from home might just be enough.

 

Agree with him on the midfield to a certain extent, 2 cm's is slightly out-dated but if you want to play Commons, Forrest, Hooper and Samaras in the one team it's the only compromise. It worked because we won and we had to win, I expect to see 5 in the midfield in the 2nd leg and so then we can soak up pressure and hit on the break. If we we're going to play 4-4-2 against the bigger teams then we will struggle. However we had to compromise tonight in order to be more deadly in attack and it worked because we won.