Champions League Wednesday November 5th 2003

Celtic 3

Anderlecht 1

1:0 Larsson 12
2:0 Miller 17
3:0 Sutton 29
3:1 Aruna 75 (pen)

Att: 59,057
ref: Kyros Vasaras (Gre)

Celtic: Hedman Agathe Varga Balde McNamara Miller Sutton Lennon Petrov Larsson Hartson

subs
Gray for Miller 75
Maloney for Hartson 83
Sylla for Maloney 90

As Jesse Jackson famously said 'Keep hope alive!'

The confidence of theAnderlecht fans can be gauged from the fact that they had over 5,000 in Glasgow for this game. After the Celtic horror show of a fortnight ago they felt this was their time. Whoops!

Our guys emerged with 'Point to prove' written all over their faces. It's often been said that in the Champions League teams occasionally have to just accept that they're going to get a good beating, like us in Porto. Tonight was one of those for Anderlecht.

After the game Hartson said that was the best 30 minutes Celtic had played during his time here. I don't know about that - I thought we had more control over Lyon - but Celtic were unbelievable in that opening spell. Everyone was up for it, but guys like Hartson and Agathe played above everyone.

Hartson was a key player in all three goals. He held the ball up strongly and played in Agathe to cross for Larsson to make it 1:0; he gave the perfect knock down for Liam Miller to drill in the second; and he give the perfect flick to Petrov's corner for Sutton to bury the third. The Belgians didn't know where to look. A team they had toyed with two weeks ago had demolished them.

In the second half we played our now familiar closed shop formation, happy to let the opposition reach a certain point, but not allowing them any further. There were a few scares, but you would expect that - this wasn't a Dundee or the huns that we were trying to keep out after all.

The only sour note came with a penalty that shouldn't have been. Balde did catch Aruna's ankle, but it was outside the box. The crowd reaction to the penalty was superb; a cacophony of noise that certainly succeeded in causing the taker to completely brick it. Magnus Hedman, saved not only the first kick, but also the rebound. Unfortunately the ball then broke to Aruna, and in the absence of any defensive cover he smashed the ball in. Now Hedman isn't exactly the diary's favourite player, but he pulled off two great saves, and was certainly entitled to feel badly let down by his defence. Maybe it was revenge for Munich.

So now all we need is three points against Bayern (from Munchen, in Bayern, close personal friends etc.), and Lyon to do the business against Anderlecht and we've qualified.