I would hazard a guess that most Celtic fans have written off all hope of beating FC Midtjylland and progressing any further
in the Champions League this season.
This is due to neglect and new manager Ange Postecoglou has been left twisting in the wind as the main victim of deprivation.
Under resourced, over stretched and a hostage to fate on Tuesday night.
If Ange can confound that assessment of the situation and beat the Danes, home or away, then he’s some man for one man.
It is ridiculous Celtic are going into the manager’s first competitive match in such a threadbare state.
The club have turned making life difficult for themselves into an art form over the last 12 months.
European football was a continental insult added to domestic injury from the moment Ferencvaros knocked out Celtic in the Champions League qualifiers in Glasgow last September.
That started an embarrassing descent into farce that culminated in the team finishing bottom of their Europa League section after a series of cringeworthy defeats and performances.
You would have thought that the memory would be ingrained on the corporate mind along with a determination to never repeat
the experience.
Particularly when qualification for the Champions League group stags carries a £14million reward from UEFA. If Celtic miss out on, and Rangers pick up the windfall, it will further finance the gap between them that was 25 points wide in the Premiership
last season.
So if the crowd who do get into the game at Celtic Park on Tuesday end up chanting “You Don’t Know What You’re Doing” it won’t be Postecoglou they’re referring to.
Do the fans seriously think the club have done everything in their power to give Postecoglou a fighting chance of seeing off Midtjylland and delivering an early statement of intent?
I suspect as many Rangers supporters as Celtic fans will subscribe to the television channel showing Tuesday’s match in anticipation of a bit of fun at their rivals’ expense.
You can’t criticise Celtic for their inactivity in the transfer market and not acknowledge their signings from Israel and Japan.
But in terms of the Champions League it adds up to an inadequate response that has come too late to make any difference.
Celtic are going into Tuesday’s tie without enough players to help Postecoglou do his job properly.
The No.2 choice for the job needs to prove he’s a first-class coach and has to disprove the sceptics who think he’s out of his depth. His employers have done him no favours in this regard.
Gordon Strachan’s first game as Celtic manager was a mortifying 5-0 defeat from Artmedia Bratislava. Even the anointed one, Brendan Rodgers, somehow contrived to lose to Lincoln Red Imps in Gibraltar in his inaugural outing in charge of the team.
But both had settled squads capable of ultimately rising above those aberrations in trophy-winning fashion.
Postecoglou doesn’t have that luxury. Celtic have spent months sleepwalking towards a new season and any wounds they suffer will be self-inflicted. Who is co-ordinating signing strategy in the absence of a head of recruitment?
Postecoglou’s sympathisers insist he needs more than one transfer window to get Celtic right again but if they all look like this one the man’s got a struggle on his hands.
Just 48 hours from now, Ange will come under personal scrutiny and the jury will be out on his Celtic tenure.
He should start by entering a plea of diminished responsibility for what’s going on around about him.
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