Glamour-lite returns to Parkhead

IT would be wrong to suggest that the Europa League is already a nuisance to Celtic. It is no time since there was such glee around the club at the second life in the tournament Sion’s rule-breaking gave them. Yet, it could be about to become one. If Udinese win in the east end of Glasgow on Thursday, and so leave Neil Lennon’s side without a point from two games after their defeat away to Atletico Madrid, it will as good as render the four remaining group games in the competition for them as dead rubbers. Morever, that Madrid defeat, however reluctant Lennon may be to acknowledge it, probably was a factor in his side’s second-half capitulation at Ibrox. European football then, could carry a domestic cost not worth bearing for a Lennon who needs to take the title. How acutely aware he is of this is betrayed by his admission that his team to face the Italians will not be picked with merely them in mind. “I thought we played OK in Madrid without belief that we could go and get something out of the game,” he says. “I’m hoping there will be more belief in this game but you have to temper that with the fact we are playing a very dangerous opponent.”

It used to be that Celtic invariably won whoever they played in continental competition on their own patch. Not now. Their declining fortunes are represented by a three-year period in which they have lost to Dinamo Moscow and Hamburg and drawn with such luminaries as Aalborg, Rapid Vienna and Sion on home soil. Lennon points out the club’s Europa League group games in the coming months are new challenges for a new team. “Already we’ve gone back-to-back big games [in Europe and league] but the whole reason you go in for these competitions is to play Atletico then Rangers, and play Udinese then Hearts. I don’t want to use fatigue as an excuse for why we didn’t play well on Sunday.”

There should be no possibility of the Celtic support being weary of the kind of Champions League-lite occasion they will be treated to when their club play a first European tie against Italian opponents other than one of the Milan clubs or Juventus. Not since Manchester United came to Celtic Park in November 2008 will the stadium have welcomed such a seductive visiting side. In no small measure, if a small stature, the presence of Antonio di Natale, top scorer in Serie A for the past two seasons and the principal reason the club finished fourth in the league last season.

“It will be nice to have a real European night at home again,” said Lennon. “I think it will be a good, open game, despite the fact we are playing against a team from a country whose football is notoriously defensively orientated. I don’t think Udinese are like that. If you look at them against Arsenal [in the clubs’ Champions League qualifier] they were very impressive and very unfortunate not to go through in the two games.”

Lennon has been accused of failing to know his best starting line-up but believes the concept is outdated. “You have a squad and it’s very difficult to consistently pick 11 players,” he said. “We’d all like to because then it’s seamless but there are so many variables that come in to it: injuries, suspensions, conditions home or away, the environment. Cha [Du-Ri] and Emilio [Izaguirre] are out, probably my first-choice full-backs. Kelvin Wilson could be out for a length of time, [Glenn] Loovens has been out and Mark Wilson has his injury problems. So it’s been difficult to get that continuity but as the season progresses we’ll be able to get a settled back four. Sooner rather than later.” Maybe just not soon enough to extend Europa League interest.

ANDREW SMITH