Thursday, August 26, 2010

Europa disaster!

We've said it before and we'll say it again, no doubt - when the stakes are high, rookie gaffer Neil Lennon plays it all wrong.

2-0 up from the first leg, many were treating Celtic's progress into the Europa League as a given - and it probably should have been. But yet again their diabolical away form came back to haunt them, they conceded four goals to Utrecht and now they are out.

To be fair to him, Celtic had lots of defenders unavailable through injury - but that have made protecting a makeshift back four a priority. Instead Lennon picked a front two of Samaras and Fortune, plus new "wonderkid" James Forrest, plus Joe Ledley (who's not known for putting in a shift)... reckless stuff, and they paid the price.

Motherwell couldn't score the 1-0 victory that would have put them through against Odense, and Dundee Utd came close but missed the chance to progress ahead of AEK.

Both clubs acquited themselves rather better tonight than the green giant from Glasgow, however.

Where do Celtic go from here?

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