04 Aug 2015 12:06:59
All the pallaver over the poor pitch, one of my girls summed everything up perfectly, if Celtic had done the business at home and taken say a 3-0 lead over there, we would all not be making such an issue over the poor pitch.
Myself, what I am worried about is the fact we lost an away goal to a part time Icelandic team, so I feel our defence cannot hope to play for a 0-0 we NEED to score over there. I am really worried about this tie.
04 Aug 2015 12:45:26
I think all the pressure is om them, not on Celtic and the team play better against teams that have to attack, and the fact that 0-0 will do, Celtic will take this!
04 Aug 2015 13:06:01
We should of secured win by at least 3-0 at home, especially with the fact our away record in europe isn't exactly the greatest
04 Aug 2015 13:50:46
We should have a more comfortable lead given the balance of play in the 1st leg. NR raises the point I keep saying. They have to attack us more than they did. That will suit us more. Whenever teams sit back, admittedly we lack a bit craft and guile. I hear people calling for two up top from the off. Silly. RD is preparing us for CL football, where ultimately very few sides will sit back. Still confident. Should we fail. The blame lies with the board. I'll say it again on record before the game. I don't think the team has improved thus far this window.
04 Aug 2015 14:40:45
Starting at home in these games is usually won by a small margin. The players knows they need to win and when you don't get an early goal, it gets tougher and tougher to get a goal at all and it could end up losing the game at the end.
Playing at home isn't allways an advantage, at this stage, don't think it is before the groupstages begins.
Next game Quarbag would have some of the same issues knowing they can't conceed and also needs to score once as a minimum, that's why I think Celtic will win it.
{Ed007's Note - If we score over there we'll go through as I just can't see us conceding 3 goals.}
04 Aug 2015 14:46:33
I definitely think we will need to score at least one goal as we have a habit of conceding away goals in Europe - no matter who we play. I don't know if Griffiths is fit to play, but it is a sign of the times that we are relying on him alone.
A club like Celtic has (until recently) always had a history of forward players more than capable in these games and we are certainly not blessed with an abundance of good strikers these days. Commons may well provide a spark, but I think he again looks 'heavy' after a close-season ( but maybe it's ma widescreen telly)?
04 Aug 2015 15:18:07
It does say it all JungleJim. When RD says he has a headache between Griffiths and Ciftci. I feel sorry for the other CL managers who don't have that headache! I'd personally play Griffiths up top. Ciftci Johansen and GMS as the three behind. Ciftci's hold up play could be vital, but Griffiths needs to be there as he's the best man currently to put them away.
04 Aug 2015 15:29:14
I agree with the editor if we score , I think they will not score three . Of course it would be a good idea to win every game three nil and we could relax and not worry about the away leg . I imagine Quarbar tried to keep the scoring down as much as possible whilst trying to get away goal. Importantly we scored and they didn't .
04 Aug 2015 16:24:23
This team are no mugs, we were never going to win 3-0 last week. It's not like we hammered them but missed chance after chance. In the 15 CL qualifiers that were played last week only 3 teams managed to record home wins. The fact we won and kept a clean sheet is a great result. They have it all to do. An away goal should see us through. Need to keep it very tight at the back early on but the sooner we get an away goal the better. Due to that I'd start with Commons over Armstrong