Elfsborg vs Celtic,Wed 7th August'13 KO 6.45pm (BBC Scotland)

At least they hard battled it out. I can praise the players for that. It was a hard battle.

But to me it looked like a team in dire need of some fresh legs.

6-8 fresh legs exactly.

We had NUTHIN up front and with Wilson leaving us the defence is going to be shakier than a California earth quake

 

Absolute * performance my heart nearly burst out ma * watching that but it can't always be pretty.

Pleased we're through but if we don't invest in this team i can't see us getting through the next round.

 

Terrible game ive had nightmares all night.
Need to spend big.

 

Cost me £ 50 to

 

Just thinking of the poor souls that traveled to that match.

 

Usually my opinion of the game changes once the dust has settled. But this time it hasn't. I'm still delighted with the result, but the performance, far from it.

It's the worst I've seen us in possession for a long time, and that is from near enough the full team. Never got a foothold in the game at all, and apart from the Samaras header, we created nothing of note. (I wouldn't count Ledley's chance as one that was created). I do think the pitch played a factor in it, because for Elfsborg to have the record they do on it, it has to play a part, because they were not a good side in my opinion. Made to look good at times by us last night however.

Lennon will have learned a few things though last night, and one will be that Samaras playing as a lone striker in Europe is a definite no no. He is much more effective as a left midfielder, and is too big a player for us in Europe not be played there.

Over the two games, I think we still deserved to go through. Although we were on the back foot for large periods last night, they never really carved out a clear cut chance. I will say that I thought Bangura had a decent game to be fair to him, and the header he had first half was as good as it got for them. He definitely caused us a few problems I thought, and was able to bring the ball down and get a pass away with ease. He wasn't great, but showed why we saw something in him to begin with.

 

Just read a interview with Mo Bangura. http://www.aftonbladet.se/sportbladet/fotboll/sverige/allsvenskan/elfsborg/article17260079.ab

Looks like Elfsborg Forced him to play the game vs Celtic. Cant help but feel abit sorry for him after reading this.

 

Didn't get to see the game last night. Heard the game wasn't great to say the least but I think it shows how far we have come that we can now still get results in Europe when we are not playing well.

Hopefully a few players to come in before the Play-Off and we should be set for the Group Stage.

 

i'm not keen on the guy at all

 

was the worst performance iv watched in a long time, no body wanted the ball and we couldnt string more than four passes together.

how we didnt let a goal in is beyond me are defence look like they only met for the first time last night. not one player wanted to play last night was a * joke.

we need a striker a new left back and centre back asap because if we make group stages and put in an away performance like that against the top teams i cant imagine how heavy a defeat we will suffer!! thank * that team last night were also awful!

 

elfsborg were garbage, if it was helsingborgs last season we played that bad against we would have lost.

 

Agreed mate

 

I was actually really comfortable watching the game last night, although Bangura done really well at winning long balls from them he was isolated and his strike partner Keene wouldnt get a game for our under 17s hes that garbage. They never looked like scoring and we were really just happy to let them have the ball and launch it forward, we could have probably played them for 900 minutes and they wouldnt have scored as we looked like we set out not to concede.

In Hindsight Elfsborg were about Motherwell level, only differance being we never set out to beat them like we normally would in every game V a Motherwell, we set out just to not let them beat us which is quite an easy task.

 

If we'd played for 900 minutes on that pitch we would have had dead players, never mind injured players.

Cold light of day, I'll write last night off as early in the season, and a difficult pitch - Scotty Brown and Lustig mentioned it. And Lennon.

Fair play also to Lustig for labelling our second half as 'dreadful' - was MOM for me, saved us so many times.

Edit: tactics dreadful though and Lennon's inability to change it during games worries me greatly and always has.

 

We'd have to improve on last night to beat any of the teams in the draw.

 

Mate said it last night, the worst since that 1st half at Rugby Park a few years ago.

Pretty sure we won`t see anything near as abject a performance again.

 

Pure easy. Never flinched once.

 

Was surprised how limited, not to mention mental, Elfsborg were. They played like Wimbledon in the 80's. Helsingborgs last year were much better IMO. Couldn't believe how badly we played considering the importance of the game and not all of it was down to the pitch. Something must be done about Ambrose-you can't have a weak link like him at this level and hope to go far. Izzy was poor as well, as he was against County at the weekend, and i would give Matthews a run at LB, he's played there before and has to be worth a look. Lustig played well again and looks to have made RB his own for the time being which is a pity for Matthews who has done nothing wrong. Forster was solid, Wilson was ok although i don't think he was quite as good as Lenny made out. Samaras gave more evidence that the only place he's effective is on the left-wing and never worked anywhere near as hard as he should have which could also be said of Commons. The result is all that matters though and it's good to know we'll have European football in some form.