THERE'S a big difference between scoring three against Kilmarnock without reply and trying to get the all-important goals to revive your European campaign against a team from the Bundesliga.
THERE'S a big difference between scoring three against Kilmarnock without reply and trying to get the all-important goals to revive your European campaign against a team from the Bundesliga.
Hamburg will kill off Celtic's Europa League hopes in Germany tonight and, in turn, increase the pressure on Tony Mowbray to get the board to loosen the purse strings in January.
Any Celtic fan travelling to Germany with high hopes of a morale-boosting victory is living in cloud cuckoo land; better teams than the one Mr Mowbray has at his disposal have tried and failed.
Celtic are currently eight games without a win, with seven defeats on their travels in Deutschland.
I'm not buying into the belief that they are somehow hampered by Scott Brown and Shaun Maloney's exclusion from the team through injury.
Both players are still unconvincing and, if you ask a number of supporters, losing one of them in particular for cash would be no bad thing next year.
I don't think it's too much of a gamble throwing Marco Fortune into this game.
The frontline needs an injection of something. Sadly, the first dose administered at the start of the season seems to have sedated the strikers.
Celtic boast the lowest amount of shots on target of any team in this competition with only 13 accurate attempts.
No surprise the bookies have Mogga's team 5/1 to get the away win and Scott McDonald best placed to score first at 9/1.
That should tell you all you need to know about the chances of a surprise victory.
On the other side of the city, just when it looked as if Rangers were about to breathe life into their Champions league campaign, a wonder goal sinks them back to the reality of, what I've said all along, a fight for third place in Group G.
This was a much-improved performance by Walter Smith's side and still gives them an outside chance of qualification to the knockout stages, but in my view, it's slim to say the least.
The performance of young Danny Wilson must have pleased the manager. At 17 years old it was a mature display, no doubt helped by the wise old Davie Weir alongside him.
It was great to see Lee McCulloch chip in with a speculative goal that owed more to poor goalkeeping than the quality of shot.
Lee's not popular with the majority of supporters that call Superscoreboard and on many occasions, I feel, he's an easy target when things are not going well for the Ibrox outfit.
Allan McGregor continues to be a vital last line of defence for the team and one of his saves was absolutely top drawer from a deflected shot. In the end, it was always going to take something special to beat him.
Rangers now need to win against Stuttgart at home on matchday five to avoid defeats in all three home games. Even three points doesn't guarantee anything, if Unirea defeat Sevilla in the other game on November 24.
The one downside to last night, weather and result apart in Bucharest, is the continuing problem Rangers have with their travelling support.
Manchester was a low point for the Ibrox club with the crowd trouble and this latest incident, where fans are smashing chairs and clashing with stewards inside the stadium will not go down well at Uefa.
The one harsh lesson that these morons will find out to their cost is that they will hopefully be identified and banned from travelling to the games.
Gers, however, may well find themselves on the end of a fine from Uefa, which they can ill-afford to pay at this present time.
Carpet Dons for rant over ref
I HOPE the SFA general purposes committee adopt a hard line with Aberdeen after the club's website slated referee Steven Nicholls.
Director of Football Willie Miller, no stranger to trying to referee games single-handedly in his hey-day, is also bang out of order with his criticism of the young ref.
Miller reckons the 2000 travelling Dons fans were short-changed by the man in the middle's performance. No mention of how his board have short-changed the manager on signing new players to strengthen a totally inept squad.
Chris Boyle, a match official who recently departed the profession for a new career abroad, highlighted some clubs blaming refs for their own team's inadequacies; case in point last Saturday at Easter Road.
Back to the ref's display, the two yellow cards for Maurice Ross were justified, in my view, even if the second was soft. It's up to Maurice to avoid suffering the wrath of Nicholls with any late and stupid challenges.
Chris Maguire hasn't got a leg to stand on, and I am surprised Kevin McBride has one either, after the challenge from the Dons player.
Mr Miller would like refs to avoid bookings until after half-time. Great idea Willie! In your day that would have allowed Doug Rougvie to take a Paul Sturrock and a Davie Provan out of the game before they even contemplated a cross into the box.
The game has moved on and Uefa and Fifa want match officials to protect players.
You can still have a strong challenge in this physical sport and Ian Murray's on Fraser Fyvie in the same game is a prime example. Hard, but fair and sadly for the young player he picked up an injury as a result.
If Willie felt that strongly about the way the match was officiated, he should have picked up the phone to head of referee development, Hugh Dallas and discussed it man to man.
