The conclusion to European campaigns is met with relief at Celtic Park. A club steeped in the tradition of jousting with the best on this continent have endured so many harrowing evenings since Barcelona were vanquished in 2012 that they have come to represent a dream draw for others.
Celtic will complete their Champions League campaign against Feyenoord while hoping to improve on the dismal tally of a single point and goal difference of minus 11 from five matches. Only Antwerp’s inferior record in Group H gives Celtic cause for faint comfort.
In this, the maiden season of a second Brendan Rodgers tenure, Celtic suddenly have broader concerns. Sunday brought a second defeat of the campaign, by Kilmarnock. Rangers have been afforded title air. Celtic recovered to see off St Johnstone a week earlier, but an unusually rattled Rodgers said he was “the angriest I have ever been as a manager” during a half-time team talk. His team have been defensively wobbly and passive in attack more often than is healthy.
After a meek surrender against Lazio late last month, Rodgers’s patience with available resources snapped. Celtic need, their manager insisted, more “experience and quality” to compete in the Champions League. Rodgers’s candour was intriguing; for too long, Celtic have been content to throw up the white flag and blame the wild expenditure of the European elite. They now have a manager who is unconvinced by the routine signing of project footballers.
Rodgers is conscious of reputation. Presiding over cannon fodder on a bigger stage than Scotland does his no good. The Celtic board are now publicly under pressure to back their manager in January. Operational annual expenses were last reported at £95m. Kilmarnock’s first-team squad had an annual cost of £1.7m in their last set of accounts. Financial disparity works both ways.
Supporters who yearn for the return of Ange Postecoglou ignore the fact that the Australian’s European record at Celtic was awful as well. This is a club who have dominated in Scotland while slipping behind in Europe for a decade.
Grumblings of shareholders at Celtic’s recent AGM suggests the penny has finally dropped that such a situation is unacceptable. If Lens, Braga, Young Boys and indeed Feyenoord can make at least some Champions League impact then surely Celtic can do likewise. The 2-2 draw with Atlético Madrid, while impressive in isolation, has proved the exception to a grim rule.
Chortling from others in Scotland, understandable on the basis of tribal rivalry, is futile. Rangers’ extraordinary run to the Europa League final in 2022 earned deserved plaudits. Buoyed by this – it never takes much at Ibrox – Rangers entered the Champions League with spring in step. Six matches later, Rangers had scored two, conceded 22 and failed to register a point. Theirs was the worst sectional record in Champions League history.
Rangers are guaranteed European football post-Christmas this time and it could yet be in the Europa League, depending on the outcome of Thursday’s match against Real Betis, even if the taking of one point from a possible six against Aris Limassol provides ominous wider context. Rangers have generally held their own in the Europa League but wild praise for this – routinely sought – makes a mockery of their supposed scale as a club. As the Old Firm scream, scrap and spend in Scotland they are increasingly irrelevant elsewhere. Alarm bells should ring.
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Domestically, Scottish football has been left behind. The technical standard of the league is desperately low. The exploits of Steve Clarke’s national team barely mask this situation. There is no other way to explain Aberdeen glee in taking a point from a trip to Helsinki or Hearts being swatted around the head by PAOK. Häcken defeated Aberdeen in a Europa League playoff; the Swedish team have lost all five group games. No sane onlooker could expect Hibernian to see off Aston Villa over two legs. However, an eight-goal aggregate success for the Premier League team was depressing for those who recall Scottish clubs at least being able to lay a glove on more illustrious opposition.
Scotland remains in a decent position in respect of coefficient position but this will inevitably change if results continue on present, feeble trend. The major clubs could jolt the Scottish Football Association or Scottish Professional Football League into radical reform to at least try to improve this situation if they had any meaningful interest.
Celtic could well sign off from the Champions League on a high. Feyenoord have arrived in Glasgow with nothing obvious for which to play. Celtic’s last win in this competition proper was against Anderlecht in September 2017. You must go back a decade for the last time Celtic Park toasted three points from a Champions League group match. Theirs is a painful record, which must change if frequent glory in Scotland is to be taken seriously elsewhere.
