Helsinki vs. Celtic 08/08 18:00 CL Live Premier Sports

am so delighted. We are guaranteed european football lads. happy days

 

Ok so assuming AEL and Dinamo are through. If Basel win we can get any of CFR Cluj, AEL Limassol, Helsingborg, Maribor or Ironi Kiryat. If Molde get through then CFR Cluj become seeded and Molde go into the unseeded pot.

 

There are only 3 ways to guarantee European Football after Christmas.

1) Qualify for CL Group stages and finish 2nd or 1st in Group which means round of 16 in CL which starts in Feb 2013.

2) Qualify for CL Group stages and finish 3rd at least which will put us in Round of 32 Europa League which starts in Feb 2013.

3) Get put out of CL at play off stage which will put us in Group stages of Europa League which we need to qualify from to make it past Christmas 2012.

Minimum 8 matches to play as of now.

 

:icon_mrgreen:

 

Joe and Charlie both excellent tonight. And Forster too. Really nobody had a bad game tonight.



Except the ref infact, some really * decisions tonight.

 

I see no reason why we can't spend a few million now.

We've guaranteed £5 million from getting into the EL at least.

 

Just listened to Lenny on radio Scotland there, saying now that at least Europa league is a definite he might be able to look at bringing players in.
Really hope so

 

The big difference tonight for me was that we got the shape of the team right. Whenever one of the Helsinki players got the ball we had 2 or 3 players nearby so we were able to press the ball well and rush them when they were in possession. This led to them giving the ball away a lot and allowing to us to have our fair share of possession.

Tonight was evidence that Neil Lennon is learning how to set a team up at European level. Encouraging.

 

Lol you must have misread what i said mate, i said this is us now atleast got european football untill THIS christmas,

 

That's a * shout and a half

 

Ref was a disgrace, as Hunnish as I've seen in Europe for some time.

Great win though.

Very confident for the next round now.

 

Maribor might be out getting beat 2nil at the moment,friday couldn't come quick enough.mon eh hoops

 

By the looks of it (atm) our opponents will be one of :
Maribor ( Slovenia)
Ironi Kiryat Shmona (Israel)
CFR Cluj (Romania)
Helsingborg (Sweden)
AEL (Cyprus)

 

I haven't read through the thread yet but here you go:

Forster had a good game. Couple of very good saves.
Matthews was quite poor but he wasn't rubbish..
Rogne and Mulgrew were solid. Didn't do much wrong at all.
Izaguirre was very poor by his standards.
Commons had a very good game.
Brown was rubbish.. again. Horrendous miss in the first half.
Ledley worked his socks off but wasn't at his best. had a good game though.
Wanyama was composed and passed well. Stupid foul to get himself sent off.
Samaras was very poor until the last 20 minutes or so.
Hooper was okay. Wasn't * and finished his chance only for it to be ruled offside.

Kayal played well when he came on. Much better player than Brown.
Forrest played okay. Nothing of note really.
Murphy wasn't on for long enough.

Overall, despite us eventually winning 4-1 on aggregate we were very very lucky not to be going home after tonight.

 

Basel are in the lead now. Meaning its likely we'll get one of CFR Cluj, AEL Limassol, Helsingborg, Maribor or Ironi Kiryat. CFR Cluj and AEL Limassol would be really hard I think.

 

I just wanna see who our potential opponents are so roll on the results in about 50 mins :icon_mrgreen:

 

Get in there! Team look alot now, very confident we can get through to group stages now, hopefully we avoid partizan though.

 

Perfect tactics tonight mate.

The right amount of attack and defence, soaked it up when we had to and poured forward at every opportunity. Subs were well timed and perfect as wll.

If it wasn't for wasteful finishing it would have been 4 or 5 tonight.

That is going to give us some amount of confidence.

I actually fear for Madrid now :icon_mrgreen:

 

Murphy must be gutted thats him cup tied he wont get his big move to barca now

 

The Bhoys done well tonight ,Many a time Celtic have blown it but really I seen enough at Parkhead to say Celtic would go through with goals to spare ,Now on to the next game.