UEFA Champions League 05/06, this is the thread for

CELTIC or Artmedia Bratislava v Partizan Belgrade or FC Sheriff

Shakhtar Donetsk v Inter Milan

Shelbourne or Steaua Bucharest v Rosenborg

MANCHESTER UNITED v Debrecen or Hajduk Split

EVERTON v Villarreal

Sporting Lisbon v Udinese

Valerenga or FC Haka v Clube Brugge

Rapid Vienna or F91 Dudelange v Rabotnicki or Lokomotiv Moscow

Anderlecht or Neftchi

Liverpool vs CSKA Sofia! It's like 1981!

Trabzonspor or Anorthosis v RANGERS

Brondby or Dynamo Tbilisi v Ajax

Real Betis v Monaco

Wisla Krakow v Panathinaikos

Dada - they do!

(xpost)

I can see Everton boring Villareal to death. In fact, I can see them boring their way to the quarter finals and possibly beyond. That would be my tactic anyway.

What a sensible chap.

When's the draw for the first round of the UEFA Cup?

I am frightened to go to Parkhead tonight, at least the pain last week was dulled by beer.

I think we may score one or two and get a bit excited then we'll concede and away goal that will kill the game.

That Chinese bloke (Du Wei?) we've got on trial is HUGE.

And, guess what? We've got a Polish centre forward again! Mind you, this one might take all season to notch up four goals.

I remember against Neuchatel Xamax at Parkhead, we needed to win 4-0 to overturn that disaster. We were all totally confident until about ten minutes in when Charlie Nicholas put a penalty into orbit and I was all "oh well, maybe not".

I sense a glorious exit a-coming

Actually, I don't know yet whether to be proud of them for the effort they put in tonight (Lennon and Hartson in particular were immense) or still angry that they fucked it up so badly that they had to put in that superhuman effort in the first place.

Perhaps Gogs should be kidding them on they are five goals down before the start of every game. They might make a bit of an effort. Except the opposition won't actually really have the luxury of defending a skooshy easy big lead so might actually have a bit of a go at us. Hmmm. This may be why I'm not a manager.

What is worrying me is a quote in the Celtic fanzine attributed to Strachan "Forget this nonsense about tactics - good players make good teams so the more I have around me, the more chance me and the club will have of success".

I googled that quote and found it. I also found this from a post-match press conference when he was with Coventry. "I pointed out one or two things because mostly football - despite all this nonsense about tactics - is about whether players can pass the ball to each other. Tactics come into it when you are playing well and passing well."

I am ever so slightly afraid for the season now.

It is a Cloughism, Martin O'Neill said similar things many times "Formations don't win games, players do". Of course you give them a system to play and tell them their roles within that, but the system means shit if your players can't play. (and I know O'Neill was exposed as tactically naive on many European excursions)

As for last night:
It was a much more entertaining game than I expected and they nearly had me believing they could do it when they scored the 3rd. I was amazed the ref added only 3 minutes when there had been 6 substitutions and numerous gunshot wounds to attend to. If the board had said 5 or 6 minutes instead 3 I think the Art Media Brats might have flapped a bit.
Good to see the team playing with a bit of pride and spirit, though in the end all they really proved was that we lost 5-0 to a pub team last week.
Gogs still has me baffled. Ross Wallace on the right? Next he'll have Petrov at full back! If he doesn't start the next game with Beattie up front and Maloney on the right then he hasn't been watching his team play.

Mo Camara almost got pass marks last night. Almost.

If all goes well, there's FC Brügge in the next round. Not an impossible task, they being out of season and all.