Originally Posted by HANDJFAN:
“Yeah, and we saw how good Man City are last night.
To be fair, that was an emotion-charged evening against an English club. Apart from that, Celtic have been dire in Europe this season. I'd love to see them do well because it means so much to their supporters, but the fact is they're not very good.”
Well, in addition to the Manchester City draw, in qualifying they beat Astana - a side who performed reasonably well in a tough Champions League group last season, going unbeaten at home throughout that campaign - having drawn the away leg in Kazakhstan and then Hapoel Beer Sheva (just!) over two legs in the Play-Off Round, who have since made Southampton toil to earn a draw in the Europa League a few weeks ago.
Yes, the Barcelona thrashing was embarrassing, as was the Lincoln Red Imps first leg, but I think Celtic's other seven performances in Europe (with the possible exception of HBS away) have been respectable. They beat two decent teams in qualifying, were well worth at least a draw against Manchester City and performed creditably against a strong Borussia Monchengladbach side that City will have to play well against in order to get through the group stage. As someone who tends to watch Celtic's European group games and qualifiers over those involving English clubs (who I find increasingly predictable to watch in Europe before Christmas due to how they put away all but the best sides with relative ease), I think Brendan Rodgers has assembled a decent attacking threat this season, it's just their defence is still very susceptible to conceding and most good teams will fancy their chances of scoring a few goals against them - as was the case in the City game.