Big Guns All Through To Last 16
While disappointing to not get another win in a nothing CL game, it can't be forgotten that Celtic done all the hard graft before tonight. Resting players is always a temptation that Europe's top sides have to evaluate and Strachan is no different.
Putting Nakamura on the bench when he is currently the best midfielder in Britain is always a difficult choice but we have one eye on the big SPL games coming up against Rangers in a game or two.
We can always take a break from the domestic drudgery, but we can't forget that the reason we're in a position to qualify from the CL groups is all down to our dominating the League Championship for the last 10 years.
Next week when we draw our opposition from one of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Milan, Lyon, or Valencia, we would do well to remember that those teams will need to come and play us in the second leg. There is no more terrifying an arena in the world than Celtic Park.
We will probably have won the League by the time we play these games at the end of February but by then we'll have spent a chunk of the Petrov fee and used some of the money from the CL run this year. Who we buy will be interesting.
Bobo isn't the rock he once was. While he is still recovering from injury you have to ask if he or Caldwell is really the answer. Caldwell is a liability after he sold the Benfica game away. In the middle of the park we had Jarosik and Gravesen who together are not the answer. We definitely need Nakamura's creative influence balanced with Lennon's predatory defensive midfield duties. Upfront we were without JVoH who would have been better suited for tonight.
So who of our opponents? The weak links in the list are Lyon and Chelsea. You'd have to fancy going through against either of those two given Mourinho's ego problem and Lyon being an unknown lot.
We'd probably want to avoid our old foes of Liverpool, Valencia, and Milan. It's Bayern Munich and Arsenal we should fear. Getting either of those two gives us no chance, any of the middle mob will need us to score a couple away and Chelsea/Lyon are the teams we shouldn't fear.
We can worry about the CL quarter-finals afterwards.
Putting Nakamura on the bench when he is currently the best midfielder in Britain is always a difficult choice but we have one eye on the big SPL games coming up against Rangers in a game or two.
We can always take a break from the domestic drudgery, but we can't forget that the reason we're in a position to qualify from the CL groups is all down to our dominating the League Championship for the last 10 years.
Next week when we draw our opposition from one of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Milan, Lyon, or Valencia, we would do well to remember that those teams will need to come and play us in the second leg. There is no more terrifying an arena in the world than Celtic Park.
We will probably have won the League by the time we play these games at the end of February but by then we'll have spent a chunk of the Petrov fee and used some of the money from the CL run this year. Who we buy will be interesting.
Bobo isn't the rock he once was. While he is still recovering from injury you have to ask if he or Caldwell is really the answer. Caldwell is a liability after he sold the Benfica game away. In the middle of the park we had Jarosik and Gravesen who together are not the answer. We definitely need Nakamura's creative influence balanced with Lennon's predatory defensive midfield duties. Upfront we were without JVoH who would have been better suited for tonight.
So who of our opponents? The weak links in the list are Lyon and Chelsea. You'd have to fancy going through against either of those two given Mourinho's ego problem and Lyon being an unknown lot.
We'd probably want to avoid our old foes of Liverpool, Valencia, and Milan. It's Bayern Munich and Arsenal we should fear. Getting either of those two gives us no chance, any of the middle mob will need us to score a couple away and Chelsea/Lyon are the teams we shouldn't fear.
We can worry about the CL quarter-finals afterwards.
posted by big tommy at
6:48 PM
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