UEFA Champions League 2018-2019 qualifiers

Same as last year then. Would rather away first but hey ho.

 

Aye that’s right “fair play” is one of their many cringeworthy buzzwords they like to display at any given opportunity yet they obviously dont adhere to that adage themselves....*

 

home first

 

Tough second round draw.

We have got forwards this time, would like us to sign a quality centre half in for that game.

We have enough to beat them.

 

Long-term the goal has to be to get away from the UEFA cartel that is destroying provincial leagues around Europe and concentrating all the power in the big teams in the big countries. 4 qualifiers for a club of our size is farcical but we are hamstrung by the 'efforts' of other teams in this country that get pumped out straight away by European no marks year after year.

Short-term we've got make the UCL Group stages, if we do so it all but confirms 10 in a row in my opinion. Especially given the increase in payments this year, we'll be talking the best part of £40 million if we manage to get there. The money, prestige, bonuses and exposure will propel us even further ahead domestically.

 

We beat Rosenborg without a striker, if any 1 of our 3 is fit we should win.

 

Last year we played some of these games without strikers. Was * ridiculous.

This time round, with Paddy being away, I worry about Forrest. If he doesn't hit the ground running or gets injured we're in the *.

 

That was my thought to this.
Rosenberg are a tough team to face early on. And more surprising they are at the round where we would normally get some really obscure low ranked team.
This I'm confident of winning, but it's not by any means a gimme of a tie that we would be used to at that round.
If we get beat (don't expect to be) in either these two rounds, we are out completly from Europe.

 

We'd be relying on either Hayes, Morgan or Johnston stepping up if that happened. We will definitely sign a winger though.

 

I feel ill.

 

Relying on those 3... hopefully a winger comes in!

 

So do I at the thought of that my corned beef roll just came back up a wee bit!

 

Not ideal but i'm actually looking forward to seeing how Morgan gets on. Rodgers seems to rate him as a serious contender for a place in the squad right now. Reckon he's Sinclair back up though

 

There shouldnt be a fitness edge by that time. We were off for 4 weeks. Two in the international players that didnt go to world cups case. The WC boys will just keep on going.

 

Players lose their sharpness within that period though, they're right in the middle of their season. While some of our players might be at the WC they will need some sort of break to recover.

We should still have more than enough to qualify but there's always potential for a banana skin when we're going into these qualifiers after a period off against teams that are in the middle of their season.

 

No, we would still progress to the next round of EL qualification in the new format.

 

I don't see the problem with that as back up. I think people are being overly critical. Only seen Hayes play, and am confident he is good enough for the 1st 2 European rounds and Morgan has shown enough to be picked up by Celtic and the national team at a young age.

 

That’s a * stinker of a draw, for both rounds. Massive ask for Brendan and the boys now, playing alashkert over there in that heat in our first game back has banana skin written all over it. Then Rosenborg who are already half way through their season and a good outfit as we saw last season in the 2nd round.

 

Rosenborg not had a great start to their season, currently 3rd and 7 points behind leaders Brann.