Celtic in the UEFA Champions League 2024-25

If the best we can manage against YB at home, even away tbh, is a draw it would be kinder and less embarrassing for us to not qualify.

 

We will thrash YB by at least 4 goals

 

Dunno what game you were watching they had two good chances at best in the game and gifted a goal
Celtic had most of the game especially in second half but didn’t take their chances and any build up play stupidly given away … dunno how you can take away from that…. That Celtic would get pumped any other night …. Think your desperately trying to paint the picture that it was a crucial point and it most defo wasn’t if we had not beaten Leipzig then drawing the two games against Brugge and Zagreb would have been a disaster


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This. I'll admit that when the draw was made, I assumed that Bratislava, Brugge, Young Boys and Zagreb were all about the same level and approximately on a par with us; but having seen 3 of them now and following the CL results of all 4, it's clear they are very different levels from each other and my assumption was only really true for Zagreb (who seemed a little weaker than us but roughly in the same ball park). Brugge are probably a bit better than us if anything and we really should be beating Bratislava and Young Boys if we want to be good enough to qualify. They seem like Pot 4 EL sides.

 

Any win will do against them. 12 points we are 100% through and likely somewhere between 17th-21st.

Teams we are now likely competing with include:

Benfica - they made a strong start but now have 10 and face two tricky ties. Barcelona at home next then away to Juve.

Sporting - have fell off a cliff since Amorin left. They do have favourable games, home to Bologna who held Benfica in the last game and away to Leipzig but neither will be certainties if they don’t turn their form around.

Feyenoord - on 10 point but poor goal difference and two tough games, home to Bayern and away to Lille who will both be looking for points to finish as high as possible.

PSV- on 8 points and have two tricky ties left away to Crvena Zvezda (Red Star) who despite their low position have given Stuttgart a hammering and competed well with Milan and Benfica. They did take heavy beatings in other games but it will be their last outside chance at qualification. Then home to Liverpool.

Man City - they only have 8 points and face a tricky trip to PSG who also need points. Then home to Brugge, this will likely come down to if City have recovered from this meltdown or not. If they have they likely win both.

Club Brugge - two tough ties left, home to Juve and away to Man City so despite reaching 10 points they have tricky fixtures left.

PSG - two tough ties left and they need at least 4 points likely being on only 7. Man City home and away to Stuttgart. Interestingly up against two competitors to them much like City.

Stuttgart - one likely win away to Slovan Bratislava and then a tough likely winner qualifies tie with PSG. They beat SB and will be on 10 points.

Dinamo Zagreb - are up against it on 8 points with a trip to Arsenal and then home to Milan to come. Both sides are chasing top 8 so will likely be full strength against them.

Monaco - got off to a flier and will likely qualify but have got two tough games against top 8 chasing teams in Villa at home and Inter away so will have their work cut out to add points.

Real Madrid - on the same 9 points but have a very winnable home tie with Salzburg next which will likely see them qualified then travel to Brest which you would expect them to win but Brest have been the surprise team so far.

You then have a host of teams on 3 or 4 points who would need two wins, this is unlikely for any of them as they all apart from the Serbians play at least one top 8 chasing team some of them play two. That includes Girona, Shakhtar, Salzburg, Crvena Zvezda, Sturm Graz and Sparta Prague.

So of the named group if we out perform two of them we qualify, given Zagreb’s fixtures we should definitely do that with them so it is one of the others. As previously mentioned though beat Young Boys and it’s more a question of how the others mentioned above perform to determine where we finish in the table, 17th is likely the highest we would come with one win and a defeat by similar margins.

I looked at us coming 19th, if we done that and didn’t get through the playoff we will still make over £52m from the CL when you combine ticket sales of around £13.8m, with prize money and broadcasting money of around £38.2m. It would set us up to outperform last years record revenue of £125m by over £10 million guaranteed and higher again if our domestic performance continues to be strong.

 

2 games in January..after today quite worried ..young boys bottom utter * but so where sevco b team apparently..then villa who honestly could put 6 or 7 against us ..yb might fancy there chances as well worrying.

 

Just noticed that YB will be coming into this game after having almost a month off for their winter break.
Not sure how that will affect them, either they’ll be well rested and raring to go, or maybe a bit rusty after their break?!
Think they’ll have one league game before they play us!

We’ll definitely be jaded after a harrowing 2 months of playing twice a week for over 8 weeks!

They are also on a bit of an upturn domestically, only lost 1 in their last 7 games.

I just hope we don’t go into this with the same complacency that we had on Thursday!

 

Harrowing?

Do you know what that word means?

A little bit of advice. Playing a game of football twice a week does not constitute "harrowing".

 

Cheers for the English lesson dude, I’m fully aware of the meaning of the word!
I may have engaged in a bit of hyperbole with my word choice, but what I meant was playing twice a week for 2 months will definitely have an affect on the mental and physical fatigue of the players.

I just hope that doesn’t put us at a disadvantage against a team coming in fresh after a long break!

 

I am more than looking forward to a very healthy home win in our next Champions League match.

 

The thought of us going out after this start to the champions league is harrowing

 

Good now he'll terrorize us for Villa now

 

He won't be eligible to play against us

 

Don't worry mate he can't play us

 

Thank * thought I was gonna be hiding under the cover again

 

Everyone * themselves over one of the worst teams to play in the CL in many years. Although knowing Celtic, it will be a unnecessarily difficult night.

 

Villa have some injuries to key players like McGinn (Hamstring) & Pau Torres (Broken Toe) who will miss our game. Hopefully they qualify for top 8 against Monaco next game and rest some players against us but we seem to struggle more against a make shift team for some reason but on the bright side we always play our best football against English opponents so bring it on!

 

Nothing to worry about then

 

Went from thinking we are a sure thing to qualify (After RB) to now thinking we could f this up. Will one more point be enough? Even if we do qualify with a draw v Brugge and a loss v Villa they’ll be questions for sure.

 

Fans need to do our bit, be patient with the team.