Brian McVeigh 
Mark Runnacles/Getty Images Sport
The Hoops sit eight points clear in the league at the moment, they’ve already secured the League Cup and are in the Scottish Cup as well. A totally unbelievable “Treble Treble” is on and Celtic fans are loving it.
Since Brendan Rodgers’ arrival, it has been a procession of trophies. He has done what he said he would do and dominated the Scottish game. He has improved a number of players in the squad and brought in some quality to the ranks.
The one area where it can be said he hasn’t improved the club is in European competitions. Two seasons in the Champions League group stages may suggest otherwise against the might and power of the finest names in the game but delve a bit deeper into the actual performances and results and there have been numerous heavy defeats on the biggest of stages.
7-1 and 5-0 to PSG, 6-0 to Barca, 3-0 to Bayern all in the last two years. You could argue that these teams could do that to a high percentage of clubs in similar positions to Celtic but the issue for a lot of fans is that under Martin O’Neill and Gordon Strachan, and even Neil Lennon to a degree, there were rarely, if ever, any huge defeats of this nature.
You could say that European football has improved since the early to mid-2000s with middle eastern investment and huge TV money. You could say Celtic have faced impossible groups in both seasons, with two major players each time giving the Hoops no chance of progression.
Drilling down again and there are other results which you can’t really argue with. The 2-0 home defeat to Moenchengladbach, the 1-0 home defeat to Anderlecht. Add to this the qualifiers this season and a 1-1 home draw with AEK Athens, plus bad defeats to Salzburg (quality side agreed) and Valencia last week and the stats don’t make good reading.
Under O’Neill, Celtic were a real force in Europe. Yes the away form was always documented as being terrible, but when you have such a strong record at home, you are always in with a chance of winning or qualifying. UEFA Cup Final, victories over Juventus, Lyon and Anderlecht at Celtic Park, and other great nights are still etched in the memory.
Strachan led Celtic to two successive knock-out stages in the Champions League with arguably a lesser team of players than O’Neill. Brilliant results against Milan, Benfica and Shakhtar Donetsk ensured more memories for us to reminisce about.
Under Rodgers? A great draw against Manchester City was a superb night, and the 2-1 win over RB Leipzig this season was very good. That’s about it I’m afraid. Decent wins over Rosenborg, possibly, but they are a poor team now.
Nobody is expecting Celtic to win the Champions League or even the Europa League given the depth of quality in that competition now. All that is expected is for the team to be hard to beat at home and to have a chance of qualifying away from home. Unfortunately, this has not been the case under Brendan, and it is something which some fans do feel frustrated about.
Remember when Celtic were genuinely feared by the top teams in Europe? The atmosphere hasn’t changed and the fans still ensure a difficult night for the opposing superstars, that will always be the case of course.
Has being so dominant at home in domestic competition perhaps affected Celtic in Europe? Remember, under the aforementioned managers the treble was rarely achieved and there was a genuine fight for honours with our neighbours across the city.
Would Celtic fans be happy with not winning the treble to actually concentrating on becoming more competitive in Europe? Or can both be done? We shall see.
