Having wrapped up the Scottish title at Tannadice tonight, here's and in-depth look at who Celtic could be drawn against in the qualifying rounds for next season's champions league:
/end
Did anyone else notice the distance Bauer got on his throw in?
We could pretty much send the defenders up when we get a throw-in anywhere in the opposition's half.
This 'new Morelos' stuff. Still a thug and a cheat. Still kicks and barges and dives his way around the park. Still gets away with it. Still has a petulant, sulky greetin' expression permantly etched on his whinging coupon. Still can't score against us. What's different?
August 2011 - Malmo knock Rangers out of CL QR3 in what would be the club's last ever Champions League tie before its hilarious death and liquidation.
August 2021 - Malmo knock The Rangers tribute act out of CL QR3 in the clubs first ever Champions League tie.
For those confused by what happened tonight, I've checked the UEFA regulations. Apparently when we score more goals than the other team it's called a 'win' and we get points, money and who knows what sort of other crazy shit.
Just a reminder that 21 of the 26 teams who automatically enter the
@ChampionsLeague
group stage come from just 6 nations.
The crooks at
@UEFA
have ensured that most of europe is sitting on the sidelines trying to catch scraps from the table. An absolutely abhorent system.
Galatasaray qualify for the CL.
Celtic are 3pts above them in the 10 year rankings used to set the coefficient payment we get - that's worth โฌ1.137M to us.
What puts us above them? The 4 bonus points we get for winning the European Cup.
The Lisbon Lions. Still contributing.
Olympiacos were pumped out of CL qualifying tonight. As they were ranked above us on the 10 year coefficient, the result should mean Celtic get an extra ~ยฃ950,000 or so from the coefficient payment.
Absolute contempt for Scottish football from SKY. Showing the 1st half, then changing it over to an English game that doesn't start for another hour. Wanks.
Given today's Covid news and restrictions, I think the right thing to do is cancel the season now and declare the league null and void.
To avoid the stramash of last season it's probably better just to award all trophies to the defending champion of each tournament.
I'm sure those Rangers fans who have been all about the coefficient this season will take solace in the fact that they added another 0.2pts to Scotland's total tonight by taking the game to penalties.
Well done, lads. We appreciate the effort.
Over an 8 game post xmas spell Rangers
- Lost to bottom side Hearts
- Drew with Aberdeen
- Lost to Killie
- Drew with St Johnstone
- Lost at home to bottom side Hamilton
4 wins & a draw from these 5 games would have given them their 1st title on pts/game.
#itsyourownfault
Over the two games we had 37 attempts on goal, with 11 of those being on target.
AEK had 15 attempts on goal, with only 4 on target. They scored with 3 of those attempts.
We lost the tie because we're a soft team defensively, and too often a wasteful team in possession.
Can't beat a late winner.
Except when the late winner comes after a late equaliser to what you earlier thought was a later winner.
If that makes sense.
Got what we deserved. Absolutely nothing.
I can accept losing these games when we give our all and make them earn it. To lose in such a gutless, heartless way is unacceptable. No fight, no passion. Nothing.
I appreciate that we had a lot of important players missing, but still.
Who to believe. The reincarnation of a club that destroyed sporting integrity in the Scottish game via years of cheating, or the governing body that destroyed sporting integrity in the Scottish game by whitewashing those years of cheating.
Difficult one.
Today was the first Celtic game that didn't feature Callum McGregor since we lost at Rugby Park on 3rd February 2018. In that time CM has had
- 66 consecutive appearances
- 61 starts
- 58 full 90 minutes
- 5,508 total minutes
- 83.45 average minutes/appearance
- 11 goals
We've scored 25 goals so far this season in just 7 games. Of the 20 outfield players we've used so far, 10 of them have scored.
We didn't score our 25th goal last season until the 23rd September - our 16th game of the season.
I will never, ever, ever understand how a labour voter can vote tactically to prop up a tory. It just goes against every law of every universe. Particularly when it's a tory slug like Carslaw that you're helping to elect. Fucking weirdos.
Since we lost that last minute goal against Killie, we've won 6 straight domestic games, kept 5 clean sheets, scored 20 goals and conceded just 2 - both against Hibs.
Last time we won 4 league games in a row, in season, was the last 4 games of the BR's 1st season.
Good signs.
'Comedy' fact of the day.
Kenny's own goal today, combined with the McGregor own goal in January, means that Celtic players have scored more goals for Rangers than against them this season.
Obviously using 'comedy' in a ironic, scunnered, sell them all, kind of way.
1. Tonight's draw sees Celtic move up 2 places to 44th in the rankings, above both Dinamo Zagreb and Viktoria Plzen - which could be important for next year.
A win next week would see us overtake Copenhagen, Krasnodar, Anderlecht and Athletic Bilbao as well.
We should give Rangers the benefit of the doubt over the FTP video.
If you leave aside the sectarian signing policy, UEFA racism ban, bigot songbook, and other players & staff previously caught, there's virtually nothing to suggest either incarnation is/was that sort of club.
Some quick thoughts on today.
- Dominated for 90 minutes
- 1-0 flattered them
- Brilliant move for the goal
- Collum is a disgrace
- Boyata & Ntcham were immense
- Players showed how much it meant to them at the whistle
- They're no better than a Murty team
- Morelos is muck
Only a couple of hours to go before our annual collective tradition of
"Here we go. This is us...fuck, Group C looks horrific...Don't care who we get, just avoid Group C...Anywhere but Group C...Not Group C...Not Group C...Anything but Gro....
....fuck...we're in Group C"
I'm no expert or anything, but I'm pretty sure that the most essential thing when faced with a 'must win' game is to actually try and win the fucking thing.
Cowardly performance from Scotland.
It's the 3rd time we've thrown away a two goal lead in Europe in 12 months.
And we're masters at losing goals in batches
Betis - 2 goals in 3 minutes
Milan - 2 in 2m
Lille - 2 in 8m
Copenhagen - 2 in 3m
Leipzig - 2 in 4m
Astana - 2 in 2m
PSG - 2 in 5m, then 3 in 5m
Interesting article in the Record, confirmed by 6 championship clubs. Gardiner of ICT had a 2nd resolution ready for when the SPFL one was defeated - all leagues to be null & void, potentially costing his own club ยฃ175,000 in the process.
It's all about stopping Celtic.
Tomorrow will be 1 year to the day that we drew at home to Midtjylland in the 1st leg of CL QR2.
Here's a comparison between the European squad from that game, and what our current squad would likely be.
Some difference in just 1 year.
Losing 4-3 in Spain with a stack of players missing is far from the worst result we've had in recent times. First half hour was excellent, and we played some really nice stuff.
But to lose it from 2-0 up is disappointing. The lack of composure gets us every time.
Not gonna lie. I am scunnered at the news that Neil Lennon will be our manager again. Love Lenny to bits, and wish nothing but good upon him. But I can't see it as anything other than a step backwards.
Douglas Ross saying Johnson should resign if he lied to parliament, after spending the last two years ignoring all the other lies he's told to parliament, is a bit like a football official who chooses what fouls and offsides he does and doesn't see.
Oh.
Celtic now have a full week before the next game to work on the training ground - a luxury we've not had during the club calendar since July. Outside of the international breaks and winter shut down it's been 2 games a week since the Rosenborg qualifiers.
I would never normally presume to speak on behalf of the wider Celtic support. But I'd be surprised if this sentiment wasn't shared by at least 99% of the fans. So here goes.
DEAR CELTIC. STOP FANNYING ABOUT WITH THE BALL AT THE BACK!!!!!
A game we should have won, and our season in microcosm.
Didn't take our chances. Lost a comedy goal. Poor decision making in the final third. Shocking use of subs. And a ref at it for 90 minutes.
Far better than recent performances against them, but still not good enough.
We never stop. But sometimes we just never start.
Really poor performance. Just never got going at all, and didn't deserve the win. Two shots on target is dreadful. So wasteful in the final third. And those short corners...
Madden was a disgrace. Wasn't even trying to hide it.
7. If Copenhagen qualify then we'll be above them in the 10 year rankings only on the basis of the bonus points we get for our win in Lisbon in 1967.
That's worth ~โฌ1.1M to us. The Lions are still contributing to the club, more than 50 years on.
A forgettable game in a season full of them. It's some going to lose to a team that didn't have a single shot on target.
It was there for the taking today. A decent team would have scudded them before the red card. A decent team would have scudded us after it. We blew it.
Nothing they do is ever wrong. Anyone who questions them must be attacked. Pander to racists. Love a good siege mentality. Thin skinned. Have a sense of entitlement the size of Jupiter. Partial to an insolvency event.
They're basically just Trump FC, aren't they?
Kyogo has scored 6 goals in the first 360 minutes of his Celtic career. One goal per hour, or 6 goals in 4 games worth.
Hell of an impact. And a hell of a way to start your time at a new club.
Anyway. Something positive. I like the signing of Turnbull. I think he could be an important player for us in the coming years.
And it's always handy to have a goalscoring midfielder, and one willing to make runs beyond whichever other midfielder we have playing as a striker.
Our Europa League squad was updated earlier today. Added are Soro, Frimpong and Klimala. Out are Morgan, Sinclair and Shved.
Ewan Henderson is also available again, as he qualifies for List B.
That's the squad we'll take all the way to Gdansk.
Remember that brilliant save by McGregor in the 21st minute? That was pretty much his last meaningful contribution to the game.
We didn't have another shot on target for the remaining 70+ minutes.
1. The draw for the CL is tomorrow, 5pm Celtic Park time. Not so quick refresher on the new format.
The 32 team 'group stage' has been replaced by a new 36 team 'league phase'.
Gone are groups of 4 teams. Now everyone is thrown into one big 36 team table.
1. Lot of talk kicking about this week about who has contributed the most coefficient points, and what needs to happen for the Scottish champion to get an automatic group place in next season's CL.
So here is another long, boring tweetfest about both.
As usual, expect gibberish
1. Olympiakos' loss tonight means that Scotland are guaranteed to be ranked in the top 15 for the 21/22 season.
It has a big impact on our European participation, meaning
- A 2nd Champions League place
- A place in the new look Europa League
- All teams starting in later rounds
Well. At least I won't have to spend all that time working out seedings and potential opponents for the knockout stage - or for next season's qualifying, the way it's going.
1. After tonight's results, Scotland has jumped another couple of places in the rankings. We're now in 16th place, just 0.125pts behind Cyprus who hang on in 15th. That's the equivalent of half of a group stage draw.
Had APOEL not scored an 88th minute winner today we'd be 15th.
1. Euro stuff.
As this season's CL gets underway, Uefa have confirmed how the new Champions League format will work from the 24/25 season.
A lot is what was already known, but there are some new bits and pieces.
Here's another long, rambling set of tweets about it.
James Forrest. On the fringes for much of the game, but made it count when involved. He could have had 4 assists
1. Shot that led to our 1st goal
2. Brilliant ball to the back post that was begging for a finish
3. Setup Ajer for the goal
4. Setup Edouard for his sitter
The right wing racist trash that we've seen in Glasgow over the last week have always been there. They're just braver in being open about it now - emboldened by the words of racist politicians, and the hysterical headlines of the racist media.
It's happening everywhere.
VAR checklist at goal (Celtic edition)
* check for foul
* check for offside
* check for hint of a handball
* check for penalty to Rangers
* check for foul throw
* check again for a foul
* check for socks not fully pulled up
* check for anything green
You've got to admire the effort they put into convincing everyone they're the same club.
From endless statements mentioning titles and history that isn't theirs, right down to the rioting, bigotry and racism that defined the old club.
They've got this tribute stuff nailed.
Chelsea's draw with Huddersfield tonight was good news for Celtic.
Liverpool are now 2pts ahead of Chelsea going into the final EPL match. Realistically, if Liverpool avoid defeat at home to Brighton on Sunday then Celtic will be seeded in all CL qualifying rounds next season.
1. How the CL groups for next season are shaping up. The teams in black qualify automatically. Those in red have to qualify.
If Madrid win the CL, Ajax will be Pot 1, Liverpool Pot 2 (1st picture).
If Liverpool win the CL, they will be Pot 1, Ajax Pot 2. (2nd picture)
Regarding the 6 minutes of added time. Here are the 2nd half stoppages.
Ajer - 30s
O'Dea - 1m 10s
O'Sullivan - 1m 20s
Ajer - 1m 15s
6 minutes seems about right for this and 5 subs. I'm sure the outrage would be the same had Dundee scored their 95th minute breakaway.
Stat of the day.
Liel Abada has scored for Celtic in all 5 tournaments this season.
Since the CL started, only Sinclair, McGregor, Griffiths and Larsson have done the same.
He can make it 6 with a goal in the Conference. Surely a first, even if the modern game makes it easier.
Impressive how we ran down the clock in injury time before the goal. Of the 5 minutes and 40 seconds of injury time, the ball was in play, in our half for just 50 seconds.
The nearest touch they had to our goal was about 30 yards out, and that was a headed flick.
Decent results for Scotland again this week. Couple of wins for Celtic and Aberdeen. Couple of draws for St Johnstone and Hibs.
Rangers letting the coefficient down again.
AEK Athens knocked Dinamo Zagreb of the CL qualifiers with 2 injury time goals, including a 99th minute winner.
As Zagreb were above Celtic in the 10 year rankings we'll get an extra โฌ1.137M from the coefficient payment.
Insert your own "more money we won't spend" joke.
Quick point on the news that Belgium will crown Club Brugge as champion.
They're 15pts clear after 29 games. However, the Belgian league splits after 30 games - top 6 have points halved before playing another 10 games.
It's effectively a 7pt lead with 11 games to go.
In today's edition of 'Through The Fuckin' Looking Glass' we're being lectured on racism by a club that has been punished by UEFA twice in the last 6 months - for racism.
They are completely unhinged as a club and support. MAGA in football form.
Most comedies run out of steam after a few series as characters become stale and jokes are rehashed.
So you have to hand it to whoever writes "The Rangers". 8 years on and still churning out brilliant comedic situations for the loonball main character and moonhowling friends.
An absolute scudding in the 1st half, and we saw it out comfortably after half time.
Hatate will take the plaudits, but Juranovic, O'Riley and McGregor were all excellent as well. An impressive all round team performance.
The Quadruple Treble is an incredible, astonishing achievement. It wasn't always pretty, but you can't expect it to be over 4 seasons and 12 trophies.
The idea of someone doing it again is as ridiculous as the idea of us doing it in the first place.
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