If Celtic fail to qualify for the Champions League for the 8th time out of 10 attempts, Michael Nicholson does not survive that. No way. No how. No chance.

So, here we are again.

Back at a similar juncture to last year in the Champions League qualifiers.

Except this time, we’re not playing a side like Kairat Almaty, we’re playing the Austrian Champions, LASK Linz.

This is the team finished above Sturm Graz in the Austrian Bundesliga.

The team that handed Hearts a 6-0 drubbing in their Champions League qualifier.

LASK are already joint top of their Bundesliga in this season, with 3 wins from 3.

No, this is not Kairat Almaty, this is serious opposition in comparison.

It is well known that we gambled with qualification last year by selling a lot of crucial goals out of our frontline.

In that particular contest, we drew a blank in both our home and away legs.

You know the rest of the story, I’m not going to go into again.

Last season, Nikolas Kuhn was sold without an adequate replacement being brought in.

This season Arne Engels has been sold.

No replacement has been brought in.

In a midfield that was already light in numbers, prior to Engels’ sale, we allowed Paolo Bernardo to depart.

Seemingly, in the midst of all that, a leading sports lawyer apparently failed to note that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was carrying a 3 match European ban.

Thus rendering him unavailable for our next 3 European fixtures.

Who knew?

Nobody, apparently.

Colour me f***ing surprised.

Nothing with this board will ever shock me.

We enter into tomorrow night’s first leg at Celtic Park with Callum McGregor, Benjamin Nygren, Mika Baur, Luke McCowan and Reo Hatate, as our available midfield options.

I don’t know about you, but I’d call that gambling.

Too many times, this board has gambled with qualification for the Champions League.

Promises were made last season that they would learn from the calamity in Almaty.

Yet here we are, heading into a much tougher qualifier with the lightest midfield we’ve had in years.

I’ve already touched on the fact that, should he play, Reo Hatate will either be a chronic liability, or a man determined to show what he can do.

Not for us, but for himself.

To earn that ever elusive move to a top 5 European club.

With around 100 clubs in top in the top 5 leagues in Europe, not one has been banging down the door of Celtic Park for the services of Reo Hatate.

Strange that.

Must be to do with his attitude, or something along those lines?

If he does play a part in either leg, he’ll either be a game changer, or he’ll be his usual non-interested self.

Personally, I hope there’s no necessity for him to play.

But it’s a sad indictment of the state of our midfield that I even have to talk about us contemplating this.

Now, I’ll put a positive spin on this, I believe we have enough about us to win tomorrow night’s game.

I believe we have the firepower to do that in our frontline.

Høgh and Duran will score goals.

But, and there’s always a but, how much we win it by will be the key.

As we all pretty much agreed on the Trinity Tims podcast last night, to be comfortable, we need to win by 3 clear goals.

It really is that simple.

Anything less and we’ll be in a pretty precarious position next Tuesday night.

The question is, could it be so precarious that we might get knocked out?

Well, most people see this two legged affair at 50/50.

Under normal circumstances, normal being defined by the fact we have an adequate midfield available to us, it should be an 80/20 tie in our favour.

Bear in mind that LASK are a club whose record signing cost £2.5 million.

Marin Ljubičić went on to play 54 times for LASK scoring 28 times, which earned him a move to Union Berlin in the German Bundesliga.

This is the kind of market LASK shops in.

That’s the kind of money they spend.

Compare and contrast that to the kind of money we spend.

The kind of money we are capable of spending.

50/50.

They’re the chances we’ve been given in this tie.

Numbers like this should not even be in the discussion.

Based on the size of our club, it should be – as I’ve said – an 80/20 tie in our favour.

It’s a 50/50 tie because our board allowed it to become a 50/50 tie by leaving us with 5 available midfielders.

Once again, that is on them.

As I said before, I believe we’ve enough firepower to win our home tie.

I also believe we’ve enough about us to score goals away from home too.

The two dangermen we need to watch at LASK are American striker Samuel Adeniran, and Nigerian striker, Moses Usor.

They scored 23 goals between them last season.

It won’t be easy in Linz, that’s for sure.

Realistically, I think we have just enough about us to do this.

But if the worst comes to the worst, and we lose this?

Michael Nicholson cannot survive such an outcome.

No way. No how. No chance.

8 out of 10 failures equates to financial loss of about £250 million.

Failure to qualify again after last years debacle should make Silent Mike’s position untenable.

Because no lessons will have been learned and his credibility will be shot.

For his sake, he’d better hope it doesn’t come to that.

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