What we learn from tonight

I wonder how many Barca would have scored if all they're tax cheat players were in jail, where they should be?

 

CL is now like EPL down here. In EPL there's maybe same 6 or 7 teams that can get into top 4 positions and therefore CL. At bottom, maybe another 7 or 8 that fight to stay in EPL and then there's the 5,6 or 7 in the middle. The gulf between the top 6 and bottom 6 is huge. So it is in the CL, which is now at the stage where from the initial draw, you can virtually pick out the last 16, with maybe the odd surprise.

A few years ago teams were getting promoted into the EPL one year with mega money, relegated the next with parachute payments of £60m - £80m over 4 years unless they got promoted back up, which many did. In season 2008-9 Leicester were 2 Divisions below EPL. They got back into the Championship and had a huge injection of cash from the Far East following a takeover. Last year they won EPL and grossed over £90m from TV/performance payments. In this transfer window they paid out nearly £66m on players and sold players to the value of nearly £42m. Tonight they beat Club Brugge away, 3-0. Anything to do with money? I think so.

I watched us in Europe in the 60's where we battled against better teams and came out on top. When we lost it was competitive. Now we and others like us from different Countries are cattle fodder. We are fast becoming CL punch bags, there to make up the numbers and fill the TV packages. For that we get paid around £30m - a lot of money yes, but not enough to take a beating.

Tonight I watched City vs MGB. We're not going to get anything from City and optimistically will struggle both home and away vs MGB....but still we're in the CL and learning.....learning how to take a beating, take the money and smile.

 

Our defence was shocking last night.

Aye Barca could do that to anyone, but we didn't half make it easy.

5 at the back and conceding within 2 minutes should not be happening, even against Bartha.

Keeper has looked really poor for me so far too, doesn't look good enough with it at his feet or hands. Thought he should have saved the FK personally.

We need a new keeper and CDM in January IMO.

Maybe even another CB.

 

personally still think gordon's had a bit of a raw deal!!

 

Don't think we can read massively into the result yesterday. Of course it's disappointing to get beaten by any scoreline, let alone by that margin, but we've seen sides like Rostov and Legia take batterings from top class sides, too, this situation isn't unique to Celtic.

I find it pretty incredible that I'm reading posts writing off players like De Vries and Gamboa when they've played a handful of games between them.

It's a new manager, a new team and there's a lot of work to do, but let's not forget how far we've come in a short space of time recently.

I'd rather lose at Barcelona in the Champions League than lose to Molde in the Europa League.

 

Roy Keane summed up this match perfectly on ITV. 100% spot on Mr Keane

 

Sorry for celebrating Champions League qualification, Roy. Depressing *.

 

He's spot on. Sad to see a massive club like ours and how low our expectations have fallen

 

By qualifying for the Champions League it gives us a chance to increase our reputation, make us a more attractive club for potential signings, and increase our revenue. And we've not to celebrate it?

The guys a hammer and is out of touch with anything and everything that goes on at our club. We don't have hundreds of millions to fall back on if we don't qualify. It should quite rightly be celebrated when we make it. I'd love to see some of these Premiership teams beat Astana and Hapoel Beer Sheva over two legs in pre season.

 

Paddy - like u and me Keano is a big Celtic man. We are all hurting

 

He's not 100% spot on. Fair enough the observations about some of our defending.

Instead of talking about Celtic celebrating qualifying for the competition. Why is it league winners are playing 3 * qualifiers?? What sort of mentality does it show that a competition for Champions, that lets in * 3rd and 4th place based on the bank balance of the league??

Just opens his mouth and spouts some nonsense at times. This is one of them. Although he was bang about Guardiola and Mourinho.

 

Problem with guys like Keane is that they are on the outside looking in.

It's easy for him to say that we should be aiming higher while not knowing about the financial disparity between us and the rest of the teams in the competition, the qualifiers we have to go through, etc. A wee bit sick of folks like him, McManaman, Ian Wright etc talking about us like they actually have any clue about what is and what should be expected. It's like they're still stuck in the era where we had Larsson, Sutton, Hartson etc and could financially compete with a lot of EPL teams. The reality is, that time is lone gone. Nowadays we are in the same category as a Malmo, Copenhagen, Legia Warsaw - just looking to get to there and anything else is a bonus.

 

I would rather lose 20 million a year and play in europa than getting raped in the cl for some rich * of a clubs jollies.
We are not some small shity club, we are well known world wide and our profile is just fine as it is.
Finishing with 0 points and GD of -20 or 30 is not going to attract many players.
we would be far better in europa maybe even winning a few games and maybe last 16 for a few years....would do the fans, players and manager the world of good...imo.

 

i remember saying we'd be aswell chucking it at champions league level a couple of years ago as we cant compete and are just about to get outclassed game after game, it feels like that after that result the other night and the way these superclubs just keep raling in more and more money and buying up all the best players in the world.

All we can do is do our best and that is play the best football we can and sign the best players we can afford.

Things have been moving away from us for quite a while and this result just reaffirms to the elites of the game that us teams from smaller poorer leagues shouldn't really be in the tournament, well they can get to * they are doing all they can to make these super clubs richer whilst at the same time doing all they can to weed us clubs from smaller leagues out of the competition, the big fear for me is that results like that will hasten the removal of us from even being allowed to qualify for the champions league

 

We'll never improve without that money, settling for mediocrity because you're scared of the challenge isn't exactly big club mentality either.

 

Don't know what Keane said, but qualifying for the Champions League IS an achievement.

1. The money and exposure it brings will make it much easier to bring in new players, which we'll need to do over the next two windows.

2. The experience it gives the players (and manager) will improve us and prepare us for future campaigns.

3. Players performing well in this tournament for Celtic will attract interest and add to their selling value - see Wanyama, Hooper, Forster etc

The majority of Celtic fans would have deemed reaching the Group Stages a success prior to the season. Of course, now we're there, we want to see the team compete.

The squad was ready for Europe, but it's not necessarily ready for this group.

 

Never been clearer that the financial gulf between Scotland and the rest of Europe is growing. We're going to reach a tipping point where if we don't address it, the knock-on effect it's having on the pitch will mean we'll never see Champions League football again in our lifetime.

We are coasting domestically but the rest of Europe is leaving us behind. Time to back the board in jumping ship if the opportunity ever arises.

 

Lot of *.
We gave them far to much respect, didnt take our chances and got overawed.
Would have been better with liam henderson in for Bitton. As the wee man takes no prisoners.

 

I agree with Keane's sentiments that we are a massive club and shouldnt accept being the whipping boys of Europe. However, I disagree with his point about the celebrations and that other worse teams have done better than us.

Getting into the Champions League earned us ~50% of our baseline annual turnover - that is worth celebrating.

Roy name a team that has reached the last 16 3x in the past 10 years with as modest finances as ourselves?