And so it begins…..were the shockwaves heard around Europe after the 3-0 home defeat to AC Milan?
More than likely with Celtic having to punch above their weight again the general consensus will be – could have done better – but then again – should we ?
Let’s be realistic, Celtic  are a large club if you take into account the stadium and our world wide fan base, other than that we have no right to dine at the top table. The money generated by last seasons European run and the sales of Wilson, Hooper and Wanyama provided a healthy profit to the Celtic coffers. However this is merely chicken feed compared to what the cream of Europe earn and as a matter of fact we turnover smaller amounts of  money than English Championship teams thanks to television deals and parachute payments should they be relegated from the Premiership.
I would state now that the sale of the aforementioned players has undoubtedly played a large part in our poor results in this seasons competition however our captain Scott Brown must take a hard look at himself after gaining a 3 match suspension for the petulance shown during the Barcelona game which resulted in his sending off. As captain of both Celtic and Scotland he should be setting a far better example.
The fact that no genuine goalscorer has been purchased to replace Hooper shows why we have struggled to score both in domestic and European fixtures. This will more than likely now not be resolved until the close season as the search for a 20 plus goals a season striker continues. The supporters have every right to voice their opinion when things go wrong however there are two issues IÂ would like to highlight which saddened me last night.
The first was the fans who threw their scarves onto the track – faithful through and through, win, lose or draw – two songs that separates us from other supports.
The second point being the amount of fans who left at 60 minutes, fair enough to say we never looked like pulling the deficit back however I cannot fathom out why people would leave an arena with over one third of the match remaining – to me it shows a lack of commitment and speaking to other supporters they share the same opinion.
League Champions and Champions League football nearly every season possibly is not enough for them, maybe they should have been around pre the McCann takeover.
So with Christmas nearly upon us and no European football beyond this we must galvanise and strive for a League and Cup double which will more than likely be completed with the current squad and no doubt will leave us bemoaning the fact that a a genuine goalscorer was never bought in the summer.
