Celtic vs Barcelona (ITV. 7.30pm)

I'd give the band to Mulgrew.

 

4-0 and 3-0. St.Mirren beat us 4-0 once upon a time. I suppose that meant they were better than us during that period?

 

There are too many self loathers within the Celtic support to see how much progress we have made under Lennon, especially in Europe. I hope that changes one day soon.

I genuinely do think we are a better side than we are given credit for though. I'm sure a lot of people still think that we're in the CL just to make up the numbers, but we showed by coming through three successive qualifying rounds that this is not the case.

 

If it were up to me he wouldn't be captain anyway. But as Lenny deems him fit to be so (as others have) then there is no chance he should lose it just for that tonight.

 

Yes they were, we were a * shambles then.

 

It was Busquets coming up and in his face that directly caused the change from yellow to red.

Poor refereeing tbh, being intimidated or manipulated by a player.

 

He made a mistake tonight..


No way should anyone take the captaincy away from him..

He's been fantastic for us for a long time now,Lenny will have a quiet word with him about being cuter and less of the daft stuff and we will move on do well and still be getting credit for quality captain performances

 

If they had stuffed us 4-0 in a European semi-final then followed it up with an emphatic 3-0 win in the second leg, then it would have been hard to argue at that time. But they didn't. Bayern stuffed Barcelona 7-0 on aggregate in April. That is why I see Bayern as being a superior team to Barcelona, and find it hard to see how somebody could disagree.

 

I think he reached for the wrong card but his view of it was perfect. Or, the linesman corrected him. Either way it was the right call in the end.

 

Very true mate. Not long ago St Mirren were beating us 4-0 nowadays we're losing narrowly to Barcelona and AC Milan, two of the greatest clubs in world football and feeling hard done by because of it.

Onwards and upwards!

 

How many games will Brown miss now

 

No he isn't.

 

probably 2

 

Never really understand this "Celtic-Barca family" thing. I have big respect for Xavi, Puyol and Iniesta and that's it. Their team is full of divers, and I never liked them because of that. Also, they are sometimes arrogant *.

Reff is a * who protected Barcelona during the entire match. If our players only touched them, it was a foul. Brown didn't deserve red card, Neymar (diving *) was crying and rolling like Brown broke his spine in pieces, Barca's players were yelling in reff's face, so the result is red card.

Players were great. Brown was great until he was sent off, Samaras was everywhere, Efe and Virgil looked solid, Forster had some amazing saves, Commons and Stokes defended really good.

Special mention to Mulgrew who tried so hard, even when we were with 10 players he was closing down Barca's defenders and running back in the middle to close down Barca's midfielders, I was honestly expecting to see him collapse on the pitch.

There was a moment when I had tears in my eyes. Brown was sent off, players were in disbelief, but they continued to fight. Mulgrew was about to take a free kick, and 60 000 fans sang Celtic symphony in full voice. This was so emotional for me, they are maybe better than us, but we will never stop fighting, even with ten players we will still give our best and our fans will follow us no matter what lies ahead.

This is why I love Celtic.

 

Used to

 

Probably a little harsh of me, he leads the team well... I hope for 4 points against Ajax, 3 against Milan and something from Barcelona (assuming they are through and rest players)

 

Personally I think we defended better and were organised better at the back than we were last year.

Not really disappointed with the performance from that respect, however I could not for the life of me understand why we kept trying to dribble the ball out of the back, put ourselves under so much pressure giving it away like that.

We were way to slow going forward, every time somebody was getting towards a good position we had to turn around and go backwards. I know we were probably trying to keep our shape but it was a bit frustrating.

I was quite pleased with everything until I saw the replay of Brown getting himself sent off, really really disappointed with his actions there. Originally I thought he'd been sent off for taking him out, but as the captain and in a game like tonight he should never have done what he did. Let everybody down tonight with his actions, there was absolutely zero need for him to do what he did.

 

When we lost to Sion, who were a far better side than anyone gave them credit for due to their "illegal" players things looked bad.

Since we were properly reinstated we have been in 3 pretty difficult groups. The EL group had the winners, the then Italian league leaders and a decent French side. We only lost to Madrid and did not bad against them both home and away. Drew twice with Udinese and beat and drew with Rennes. That imo gave the team some really valuable experience and we have built upon it. Last year and even this one its obvious we have matured as a team and imo only Benfica away last season was a bad performance.

It takes years to really mature in the CL and I think we are showing some really good signs of doing this. As long as we keep qualifying we will get better and its highly unlikely we'll get this tough a group again.

 

This is simply one of the best posts I have ever read on here.

 

I think any calls about stripping Brown of the captaincy is an over reaction. He's matured over the last few years and has been vital to the team. Daft and petulant tonight - something we've not seen from him for a few years.

Gutting tonight, but now the Ajax double header is massive. No reason to say we can't win them