The Song Remains The Same.

22 minutes in and the games a bogie. Finished, fineto, damage limitation exercise and another inept European away performance to file away for future reference when oor support gets carried away again. The eagles of Lisboa never lose at home, when they do it’s to teams better than us and they also feel the arses of teams better than us at the Estadio de Luz.

So why did we think that we would go there and get anything other than a shooing? Because we are Celtic, and we seem to forget oor on the road CL failings each these must win encounters come round. To the back of the mind go Rosenburg, Donestk, Porto and Anderlect. In each of the season we have been at fitbaw’s corrupted table we have had a hefty defeat and a damaging performance in at least one of the away games. Why would this season be any different?

Different team different style but same old same old. Guid players failing to turn up perform and basically making it easy for last season ¼ finalist to gain revenge for the lesson they got in Glesga. Two down before we got oor arses in gear and started passing the ball to guys in green and black. You can’t give guid teams two goals a start and expect to come back. You also can’t legislate for bad luck and a freak accident to allow you to go 2 down.

But what you should be able to stop is the other team playing. It was evident that the main Benfica threat came from that leg breaking right back Nelson. His 1st ball in the box caused an own goal and he set up the third. Now we were troubled doon the left hand side all night . Pearson to start with and Naylor had their Capucho and Michael Gray games. They couldnae handle Nelson. GS should have seen this and changed.

So what aboot the rest? In truth we did nothing so bad apart from a few flashes from Benfica we weren’t stretched by any matter of means. Arfur only had one save to make and as GS says that happened when we put on Magic for the blooing oot his arse Sno. Oor main downfall was that we couldn’t keep the bloody ball and oor creative players, oor main honchos were terrible on the night.

It was a collective bad performance. I know Caldwell will get made the scapegoat as he is not Tommy G- who for me made far worse mistakes at Old Trafford- and fans will want him hung drawn and quartered his baws kicked and banished to Coventry or such like. Sheer hypocrisy. Never heard them shouting aboot sending Tommy G back to Madrid. I hear already witch-hunts are being organised and it wouldn’t surprise me to hear his name booed on Saturday when he keeps his place. Oor support is a fickle bunch.

Caldwell was just as bad as Lenny- who again proved that he struggles away from home in Europe- Naylor, Pearo, Telfer, Naka, Miller, Magic, Maloney and all others who didnae turn up to the game. We live in a blame culture, as it’s easy to blame someone else for a collective failing and it’s easy to blame an individual rather than face up to the truth.

If you blame Caldwell for last night then your just as well blaming George Bush, Tony Blair, Maggie Thatcher, Hugh Keevins, me for not going to Lisbao, the beatles for singing octopuses garden, Oasis for be here now as it’s just as ludicrous. Footballers make mistakes, it’s part and parcel of their make up. Every goal comes from a mistake of some sort but as it’s a team game their mates sometimes bail them oot.

If players keep on making mistakes then it’s time for them to move on but Caldwell was only playing in his fourth CL game. Only his 2nd away game in the CL. In both his away games him and Mick have lost 3 goals per game. Just like 5 other away games where we lost 3 goals. Games in which oor defence contained so-called better players. For those shouting for Balde to return remember he played in all those games as well.

The bottom-line is we can’t work oot how to play away from home. We are either a glorious failure or an inept bunch of reprobates who shouldnae be playing at that level. We play with a fear; a lack of belief in oor own ability and that is galling. If we had reached any level of performance we could have got a result or at least made them work for the result. Benfica looked more dangerous at Parkheid than they did last night.

Positives? The performance of Big Mick, to a lesser extent Sno and oor fantastic support that made my hair stand on end with the non-ending Wullie Maley song towards the end of the game. A show of defiance that was appreciated by the Benfica fans who applauded it.

It’s still in oor hands. It will take a bloody big performance against Man Yoo to ensure a point, but really with oor away day record all 3 would be better. Dinnae fancy going to Copenhagen them needing a result to finish 3rd and us with the possibility of finish 2nd 3rd or 4th. Don’t think ma nerves could handle that.

Having looked at it last night was expected. When we looked at the group and fixtures how many thought we would have had 6 points after 4 games? Did we count on getting points from Benfica away from home? Even oor most optimistic supporters, those who today are shouting to sack the board, the manager, the cleaner the club doctor and the wee wimmin who sell the programs would have said Copenhagen was probably oor best chance of getting a point away from home.

The players and manager never over reacted to beating Benfica and I’m sure they won’t panic- unlike some- and over react over a defeat. They will bounce back, we have too much quality not too and we do have mental strength to bounce back. They just need to find the answers to get the results to get the job done in the last 2 match days.

Last night’s results have actually made the group the way I thought it would look at this stage. I didnae think we would be 2nd fancied us to be 3rd with an outside chance of qualifying so are we over achieving and Benfica under achieving? Whatever has happened there is a gale blowing in the ochils and ma tent is getting a bit loose.

Hail Hail