Hope & Høgh in Europe

The second game of Celtic Europa League will kick off tonight and we continue as we left off after the defeat to Ferencvaros in the opening game of the competition, fans unhappy, a board not fit for purpose and not enough new faces bedded in in time for the Champions League qualifier earlier in the season.

It’s a tough one to explain to those outside the world of Celtic, I mean when asked what you wish to achieve different to last year really all we missed out on was the Treble. Realistically competing in Europe is something we all wish for but if we are to be honest sorting out our house at home seems just about all we can master this season.

Watching Celtic on the opening night of the season filled me with hope that it may be possible we won’t have the same dire season and a lot of that relied on how Celtic played out the last few weeks of the transfer window with signings, who we kept and who we brought in!

The spotlight is still on one of our summer signings, Kasper Høgh who is not shining in front of goal and has had a frustrating start to life at Celtic with a hattrick against Kilmarnock his only goals so far since becoming Celtic’s record signing.

I guess the boards plan was to sit and wait on the outcome of European play off. They have banked more money than they spent and once again Celtic failed to qualify for the Champions League. It really is a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in, instead of really going for it and going into Europe wanting to give a good account of ourselves we waited on an outcome that then decides what team we will have for the duration of the season and for the Europa League.

It’s a brutal business model yet it’s one the board insist is the only option for us while they insinuate we expect too much. It’s the same old story from me each season I know, and I have got to the point of why am I even wasting a paragraph discussing it as nothing has changed. Even with the constant online talk and protests things just stay the same.

Fans shouldn’t be made feel being prepared for a game like LASK is looking for too much or that we are wanting to achieve outside of what we are capable of. The margin between success and failure is enormous financially and competitively, the board many of us fans will argue has the responsibility to strengthen the squad before the first leg rather than after it.

Hopefully tonight Celtic can pull off a shock in Europe and Hogh can get a goal he badly needs to score.

Rachel Lynch a journalist from Dublin with InTallaght. She has supported Celtic her entire life with a home address of Celtic Park she didn’t have much choice. Her first memory as a child was the road to Seville and also her first team seeing the likes of Larsson, Thompson, Petrov, Sutton & Hartson. Some would say she was spoilt from the start with Celtic, she was….