IN a world where it all about the thousands a week and the millions a year, the penny is starting to drop for Celtic in Europe.

They see themselves as a Champions League club but they are now just 90 minutes away from no longer being a Europa League team.

After being outplayed and outclassed by Valencia at Parkhead on Thursday night, the easy option was to point at the resources the La Liga outfit have, both in terms of their wage bill and how that money is spent on players like Denis Cheryshev and Geoffrey Kondogbia.

In many ways, it is a fair argument and it stands to reason that the more cash you have, the higher the calibre of player you can attract and the better the team will be.

For those with lesser resources, the challenge of catching up and competing can seem almost impossible at times.

Over 90 minutes, anything can happen but, in the long run, there is almost no chance of a David, in relative terms, beating Goliaths, again relatively speaking, over the course of the campaign.

But, enough about Celtic's wage bill and the resources Brendan Rodgers has at his disposal compared to the rest of the Premiership clubs.

In Scotland, Aberdeen and Kilmarnock aren't expected to win the title because they don't have the financial muscle to build teams and squads capable of it.

And that is the same scenario for Celtic when it comes to Europe.

Nobody at Parkhead can demand that Rodgers' side challenge for the Europa League silverware because there are far bigger hitters with far deeper pockets in the competition.

But the Hoops faithful are right to be concerned at the lack of progress Celtic are making on the continent.

Successive Champions League campaigns saw the superstars of Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich sweep Celtic aside.

The heavy defeats were embarrassing and tough to take, of course, but they could be understood and reasoned with.

Supporters are right to expect better against AEK Athens in a Champions League play-off, though.

Failing to reach the group stages was a significant financial blow for Celtic and the cost of that Greek tragedy was laid bare in the interim accounts released last week.

Revenue was down 30 per cent from the £71.5million during the same period last year and the Champions League gap had to be filled by the sale of Moussa Dembele in the summer.

"These results reflect the absence of substantial UEFA Champions League revenues in comparison to the same period last year,” chairman Ian Bankier said. “But they are counter-balanced by the benefit of player trading, significantly by the permanent transfer of the registration of Moussa Dembele to Olympique Lyonnais.”

The figure of £38.6million cash in the bank would have caught the fans’ attentions and the demand will be for Peter Lawwell to go on a summer spree and spend some of that to bolster the team once again.

That is easier said than done, however, and Celtic find themselves juggling priorities once again as they look to remain dominant in Scotland but somehow make an impression on the continent.

It would be financial folly to spend the kind of money required to turn Rodgers' side into a solid Europa League knock-out team given the consequences of failure.

What Rodgers has achieved in earning Champions League football twice and Europa League progression twice in three years is as good as it gets for Celtic.

That the level they are at. Fans shouldn't like it, but many will surely now understand it.

Their fear should be whether Rodgers feels he is hitting his head off a glass ceiling at Parkhead.

AND ANOTHER THING

HOW many police officers does it take to confiscate a couple of bottles of booze? Quite a few of them, it seems.

A Tweet from South Ayrshire Police on Saturday night showed a 4x4, a van and a dog unit as they stopped a supporters’ bus heading to Greenock.

The second picture had a carry-out that would have added to a day at the football, but hardly one that that would have brought chaos to the streets of Inverclyde.

A Sergeant Lyall claimed “Operations like this one help keep fans and the wider community safe”.

The replies were rightly scathing as football fans got more evidence, if any was needed, that they are treated differently and disproportionally.

Don't hold your breath waiting for smug Tweets showing rugby fans being targeted, or music-lovers on their way to a festival.

The chances of the laws being updated so that supporters can get a drink inside the ground appear somewhat slim at present and that will remain the case until there is an appetite for change at Hampden and Holyrood. Good luck with that.

But there is no reason why fans shouldn't be able to take a carry-out with them on an away day.

If taking a couple of bottles and cans off football fans on a Saturday afternoon is all that officers have to deal with, what a relief. Chances are, and this is just a hunch, there may have been more important and serious cases to be cracked.

It can only be hoped that the fans that were dealt with weren't singing songs at the same time. Then they would really be in trouble.