It would be nice at this time of year to see Scottish teams come out and play above themselves in European qualifiers, rather than the other way, which we seem to see too often.

Celtic and Aberdeen will be left to carry the flag for Scottish football on the Continent now with both Hibs and Hearts finding themselves already out.

To be fair, I thought Hibs punched quite considerably above their weight over in Copenhagen. I honestly thought that they would lose by at least a couple of goals after losing the first leg at Easter Road. I don’t think you can ever castigate anyone for going out on penalties because it is such a lottery.

Hearts were by far a much bigger disappointment, although I did think there was an awful lot of complacency, maybe not from the Tynecastle camp, but from some of the chat in Scottish media circles about how straightfor5ward it would be for them in the second leg.

Anyway, it leaves us now with two teams in Europe – and I don’t think Celtic will find it too easy now against Astana.

They played over there a few years ago when they took on Karagandy. They got a shock that night when they lost 2-0 although a late goal from James Forrest meant that they salvaged it in the second leg at Celtic Park.

Essentially, this time they really need to try and contain an Astana team – whom I seen quite a bit of last season in the Champions League. They have a bit of money behind them and they are a solid, good team – especially on their own plastic pitch.

Celtic will need to adapt to the surface as well as the high temperatures after a long trip and it really is as tough a tie as they could have got at this stage. I do, however, hope that they keep the tie alive for the return leg in Glasgow because we badly need to have some sort of representatives in Europe – and it would be great to see a team in the group stages of the Champions League again.

It does seem that the longer you go without being in there, the harder it is to get back to that level.

The co-efficient, of course, too has taken another bump with the exit of Hearts and Hibs and so now we have to look to Celtic and Aberdeen to lift it.

Aberdeen have made it through relatively comfortably after their 4-0 aggregate win over Ventspils and wouldn’t it be fantastic if they could get past Maribor in the next round? Of course, that too is a very, very tough draw as we have seen in recent years.

Like Celtic this week, they will need all their powers of concentration if they are to try and make their way through the tie.

As we have seen so often in these rounds, an away goal really can be golden and I would imagine that Celtic will look to keep things as tight as they possibly can but be clinical with any odd chance that comes their way.

It is not the easiest of trips for them this week but for the good of Scottish football hopefully they can come out of the other end with a positive result.