Will we ever be able to compete?

Btw, I take back part of what I just posted. Watched a video a pal sent me... I don't think Pepe ever touched Alves. What a disgrace. I mean, I think he wanted to. I think Pepe wanted to break his leg, but it doesn't look like he made any contact, and we can't go about policing intent.

 

we've done it before (though we had a team of near-legends)... never say never

 

We will never ever be able to compete with the manchester uniteds or barcelonas of this world ,we lack the quality of squad for 1 we also can never hope to attract such financial clout either, in saying that we should be able to make the last 16 maybe even the last 8 regulary

 

Aye, spot on there !!!!!!!!!!

Can we compete ?

NO !!!!

Hail Hail

 

diving is sad but i do not see it going away as euefa are spineless and will never punish a barca player, a real player or a united plater either. a high profile case needs to be made an example of.

 

we dont need to dive, we can do it by playing football. Pure, beautiful, inventive football.

 

Barca have a world-class first 11, excluding the left back position and questionable central defence, but their squad is terrible. Back up for Xavi is 19 year old Thiago, back up for Iniesta as we saw against Real is Keita who would slot in nicely for a team like Birmingham. Backup for the frontline is wee Jeffren who has potential but far from Champions League quality. Their defence is utterly * with a single injury to the first team (Mascherano in central defence, *?!).

Their team offers no aerial threat, unable to capitalize on corners or defend them for that matter. All they've got is Xavi, Iniesta and Messi playing the tiki-taka passing game, if one doesn't turn up for the match they're pretty much toothless.

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As for United.....Carrick and Fletcher are *, Scholes and Giggs well past their prime, without Vidic there's only Wes Brown and over-the-hill Ferdinand in defence, the twins Fabio & Rafael are suspect defensively, Nani has no intelligence as a footballer, Valencia is a Didier Agathe clone (pace and nothing else) and back up for all these are untested kids, only a very small minority of whome capable of become top-class players.

Their attacking options are good though, I'll give 'em that.

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Now for Celtic...you already know our defence is *, we need a couple of top quality CBs to challenge, but we have great depth in fullbacks; Izzaguirre, Mulgrew, Wilson, Cha, Hinkel, Matthews, Juarez, O'Dea?, Conroy?

Our midfield is packed; Brown, Ledley, Kayal, Commons, Ki, Maloney, McCourt, Forrest, Ljungberg and the Twardzik twins looking really promising. All of whom, excluding the twins, capable of slotting into the first time at any time, all of a similar ability.

Up front we may not have as much backup but Hoops and Stokes are top-quality and will get the goals. Sammy and (bear with me) Murphy can throw in a bit of pace and strength to disrupt defences if needed.

Out of the entire first-team squad, only two will really be youth players, Forrest and Matthews, as opposed to United and Barca who's bench will be made up exclusively so.

Our squad is better than both teams, the first eleven may not match up man for man, but we've got a balanced team without any weak links (that is if Lennon sorts out the defence)

We can win the Europa League next year, I'm certain of that, and over the next 3-4 years we'll build a world-class team.

 

Amazing post, you should drop marijuana from your life mate, how you describe the three teams is simply shameful, it seems like you haven't watched much matches during the last year, or at least you didn't understand what you watched on the screen :icon_mrgreen: Barça is a world class team and all their players are amazing, even their worst player would fit in our squad easily ( look at the Jeffren rumour ) in terms of quality, let the prehistoric Scottish football style aside (Crosas didn't fit there because he was to weak, but any Barça player with a bit of strenght would fit at Celtic perfectly ). Be serious, Mascherano in center-back plays better than Rogne and Majstorovic put together and finally, Thiago is one of the best prospects in World Football, it does'nt care that he is so young, he is pure class, and the best thing is that Barça doesn't have a very large squad, but they have some gems coming through the ranks like the mentioned Thiago, Fontàs, Oriol Romeu,etc. Many players from la Masia would add class here in Glasgow man...

We are Celtic and we have to be proud of that, I don't matter if we'll win many European trophies, we have to just be proud of being fans from our club, and I hope that with this squad and a few signings we'll be scaring teams off Parkhead again ... but we can't compete with the teams you've fiercely criticised now

 

I think if lennon keeps taking the team in the direction and adds maybe a keeper , a centre back and maybe a second striker of kayal/izzys ability i think we could make a real go for the europa league

 

I wouldn't say I was fierce, just trying to be objective. All we hear are pundits singing the praises of Barca, making them out to be footbaling gods that "we can't compete with".

Of course we can, now, and in the coming years as our team gets stronger.

Their defence is appalling for a world class team, Paddy McCourt would tear them apart :bbpd:

 

Would say this is a bit too short for us to build a world class team mate, right now the reality is we just don't have the money to compete with the likes of Man U or Barca right now and I can't really see that changing anytime soon barring a complete and utter disaster. Even after them we would still have the likes of AC Milan, Chelsea and Bayern teams like this. They all have players that would fit straight in to our team right now (personally I wouldn't say no to Robben ) we still have a while to go before we can compete for the C/L properly.

 

Barcelona no doubt a fantastic team and the best in the world imo they more than make up for a few daft dives with there football and the fact Messi gets 10 lumps of * knocked out of him but 10/10 always goes to cary on with the ball.

But i think it's almost became the norm in football in all corners of the world Lafferty and Naismith as a prime example countless dives you know it's a problem when you see someone the size of Rooney diving aswell couple of weeks back against Luiz in the Chelsea game was a shocking dive and now it's got to this whole * face touching and the player goes down like he's been shot if someone softly slapped you on the street the last place you would go is the floor.

To the bhoy saying Celtic need to dive if i ever seen the hoops go out there and win a game over a player diving i would be more dissapointed than if we lost we have always went out to play the game how it should be played and we always will.

 

the OP said we are as good techniclly as porto, were nor close imo

 

I would rather lose and walk off the pitch with pride rather then cheat and dive for a win.

 

if our players carried on like the continental lads we would not get away with it.

 

I would never like us to win by diving or cheating other teams, however against a Mourinho managed team..........

 

No. In fact the only way we can even progress beyond the groups is the way WGS did it - very tactically/negative/backs to the walls. Coming out and attacking never worked. The problem is we have not got the keeper we had in our great runs in the CL and (despite what a lot of people post) I dont think the current CH options would do near as well as we did in the CL under WGS. I also think we lack the quality at CF too. Hooper maybe but I dont think even Lenny sees Stokes as more than a good SPL level striker. If we want to be able to repeat the last 16 high points of WGS's time we will need two new CHs, a striker and a really good shot stopper. You cant overstate how important a brilliant goalie was to us under WGS in the CL.

 

tbh i firmly believe you can get away playing 'real' football.
as much as i hate them, United seem to be a fairly physical team, except maybe Nani, and they are as successful as anyone. i agree though that Blatter and Platini need to get the finger out and start to fight this plague of football.

 

just say no to drugs!

 

I've always thought it would be a good idea to try and set up some kind loan deal with Barcelona. Giving decent fringe players game time with us. I remember when we were linked with Bojan for a loan. Trying to arrange something like this would help our chances in Europe like the Europa League.