The usual Battle of Britain ballyhoo has been conspicuous by its absence as the teams at the top of the English and Scottish leagues prepare to meet in the Champions League on Wednesday. Such grandiose billing was always a little silly and seems even less necessary now that the outcome will generally be perceived as a foregone conclusion. The gulf in quality and competitiveness between the two leagues has widened in recent years and it would be a major surprise were Celtic to do what no English team has managed and put the brakes on Manchester City’s impressive opening to the season.
The temptation is strong to suggest that Brendan Rodgers’s team might be in for another mauling on the scale of the 7-0 welcome back to the Champions League they were given in Barcelona a fortnight ago, though this time Celtic are at home and, while the process has clearly begun, Pep Guardiola has not quite turned City into a replica of his former charges just yet.
City will probably not be looking for a statement victory in Scotland in any case. They will be perfectly happy with the points. They have to play Barcelona too and, as Guardiola sensibly pointed out after the opening Champions League victory over Borussia Mönchengladbach, when you find yourself in the same group as such a strong team your first duty is to try to make sure you do not drop any points from the other matches.
Celtic dropped their first points of the SPL campaign last week, when they could manage only a draw away to Inverness Caledonian Thistle. City were thumping Bournemouth the same weekend, though in the preceding week they had accounted for Manchester United and Mönchengladbach. Guardiola’s assertion that Eddie Howe’s side was the best he had played all season was an early indication that not only is the rivalry with José Mourinho still current but that not all the wind-ups and oneupmanship will necessarily emanate from Old Trafford.
Rodgers must have felt euphoric enough to say something similar after the long-anticipated resumption of Old Firm games ended with a resounding 5-1 Celtic victory. Yet three days later that achievement was put into the most unflattering perspective by the cruel scoreline in Catalonia. “We were given some harsh lessons in the Nou Camp,” Rodgers said. “It was a humbling experience, though Barcelona are capable of doing that to better teams than us.”
The dropped points at Inverness were perhaps inevitable in the circumstances; it is never easy to put a hiding of that scale out of mind and concentrate on the next game. Celtic were not at their best in the league cup in midweek either, struggling at home against the part-timers of Alloa Athletic before two late goals set up a semi-final meeting with Rangers.
Rodgers characteristically attempted to talk up the positives – “Winning builds confidence, we can’t always play perfect football but we can look for ways to improve” – though there is more than a suggestion of ever decreasing circles about Scottish football at the moment.
While having Celtic and Rangers back together is probably better than having them apart, the need for a competitive European dimension is obvious now that the English Football League has crushed any Old Firm hopes of joining in the fun south of the border. “Celtic and Rangers hit by new English snub‚” was the Daily Record’s take on last week’s news that the EFL will not be expanding to five divisions.
So Europe it must be for the moment, even if Celtic appear much more suited to the Europa League than the full-on powerplay of the Champions League. While it might be considered unlucky to be drawn in a group containing a Guardiola side, to find yourself having to play two of them – with due respect to Luis Enrique – must be daunting indeed.
Celtic’s only hope when the draw was made was that the new City manager might take a little while to find his feet in England, or that his club’s underwhelming track record in Europe might drag even Guardiola down. None of this has happened. There is a new manager struggling in Manchester, in the Premier League as well as in Europe, but his name is not Guardiola.
City, for perhaps the first time since the enabling Abu Dhabi money was pumped in, look more than the sum of their parts (and what a sum that must be). In between reinvigorating Raheem Sterling, introducing Ilkay Gündoğan, scoring points off Mourinho and taking his team clear at the top of the league, Guardiola has even found time to slap down Yaya Touré’s troublesome agent.
It seems Guardiola can do no wrong at the moment. His players are rightly attracting superlatives, though if Celtic are looking for a glimmer of hope they might conclude that these are exactly the conditions for complacency to creep in. One feels it would have to be quite a lot of complacency for a team that shipped seven goals last time to manage a result against one that won 4-0 but Celtic must try to make the most of their home advantage.
Perhaps anyone would struggle against Barcelona on a good day. We may have to wait until City’s games against Guardiola’s old club to give that 7-0 scoreline some context but in the meantime Celtic’s motivation is clear. They need to prove there is still some fight in Scottish football.
