UEFA Cup Thursday 31st October

Celtic 1

Blackburn Rovers 0

1:0 Larsson (85)

Att: 59,553

Ref: Albrecht (Germany)

Celtic: Douglas; Valgaeren, Balde, Laursen; Agathe (Sylla 81), Lennon, Lambert (Hartson 75), Petrov, Thompson; Larsson, Sutton

Blast another home European defeat. Oh sorry, I've reading too many of the papers, so I'm up to the eyes in humbug.

We just can't win, can we? Several times in the last few years we've played pretty well in Europe, but been mugged. As a consequence we've had to endure endless streams of nonsense from the likes of Jim Traynor along the lines of 'Not good enough, you canÕt just play pretty stuff, winning is the bottom line.' So we win. But that's not good enough either judging by the hopeless tosh that appeared after this.

Now I'm not about to say we played well; we didn't, but we never let our heads go down, didn't settle for 0:0, and got a goal. We have to play better down there, we know that, but without the concession of an away goal we're in a decent position.

Blackburn played better than most people imagined they could, but seemed too intent on walking the ball into the net. They had most of the ball in the first half but, other than a fine save after a defensive gaff, Rab didn't have a lot to do. We were very nervous though, Lennon and Laursen in particular were guilty of simply lumping the ball anywhere, without looking.

The second half was much better; the players got the ball down and played some decent stuff. Sutton was man of the match by a good country mile. His first touch was exceptional, his shielding was expert, and his passing was excellent.

The goal arrived 7 minutes from time; Hartson lost his man at a corner to power a header toward goal, the man on the post knocked it out, but only as far as Larsson. You know the rest by now.

And now a few words about the Blackburn manager. The most obvious word that springs to mind is 'twat'. When asked after the game how his reception was he said it could have been more hostile. In a city where emotions after games have literally become murderous this was serious stupidity. But then again, what did we expect?