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By JOHN MCGARRY Published: 02: 52 AEDT, 22 January 2026 | Updated: 02: 55 AEDT, 22 January 2026 View comments On the face of it, Celtic’s trip to the historic city of Bologna this week holds considerable promise. The Parkhead side have accrued seven points from six Europa League matches to date. A win against the Italians or Utrecht might be enough to secure qualification for the next phase of the competition. Four points across both matches should certainty do the job. It’s a position which should have the green and white hordes travelling with a real sense of nervous expectation and excitement. Why, then, does the clash against I Rossoblu almost feel like a rude intrusion on the season? Exactly a year ago, with Brendan Rodgers at the helm, Celtic saw off Young Boys and had their ticket stamped to the knockout round of Champions League with a game to spare. Their performance in a narrow defeat to Bayern Munich hinted at the possibility of the club belatedly making inroads into the business end of the premier tournament for years to come. Celtic beat Auchinleck Talbot in Scottish Cup last Sunday but it was hardly a convincing performance The Parkhead side have struggled since they were knocked out of the Champions League on penalties by Kairat Almaty last August Celtic's wonderful display against Bayern Munich in last season's Champions League now seems like a distant memory We can now see this commendable run for what it was, though. An outlier. Absolutely nothing that’s happened since has suggested that the hierarchy truly aspired to stay there. No club which sells its best assets without adequately replacing them before chasing proven managers out the door can speak seriously of having ambition. Celtic’s decline in that short period has been pronounced, yet it’s no more surprising than a car grinding to a halt when its owner has neglected to do the required maintenance. There was a time when such mishaps came with the consolation for fans of ongoing domestic domination. With the side’s grip on the Premiership trophy looking weaker with each passing day, though, Europe, in so many respects, is now the least of their concerns. For long enough, those individuals who questioned why Scottish title after title didn’t manifest itself in meaningful progress in continental competition were told to pipe down and stop being so entitled. Yet the point they made about Celtic’s success coming in a domestic environment populated with weak challengers was as valid then as it is now. With Rangers and Hearts now resurgent, the folly of the club’s lack of foresight is becoming evident. Celtic wouldn’t be in this pickle in Scotland if they’d acted like the big European club they profess to be. While much has been made of the rate of decline across the past 12 months, underachievement in European competition is a long-standing issue which has come into sharper focus post-Covid. It was inevitable that it would eventually bleed into the domestic game at some stage. With so many issues on domestic front, Martin O'Neill could probably do without Bologna clash Chief executive Michael Nicholson claimed that Celtic aspire to be 'world class' in everything they do Martin O'Neill chats with Stephen Mc Manus during a training session at Celtic Park on Wednesday ahead of trip to Bologna The last Celtic manager to win a knock-out tie in Europe after Christmas? Try one Martin O’Neill back in 2003-04 when his side saw off Barcelona. Celtic have made it through to that point in the New Year just nine times in the intervening years. Sure, they’ve faced some heavyweights in the form of Milan and Barcelona, but the likes of FC Copenhagen and Bodo/Glimt have also eliminated them at that juncture. It’s in a string of Champions League qualifiers, however, where a light has truly been shone on the club’s failure to punch its weigh in Europe. To lose one such tie, with all the money and prestige that’s riding on them, is perhaps forgivable. But Celtic have now lost five in a row; AEK Athens, Cluj, Ferencvaros, Midtjylland and most recently and infamously to Kairat Almaty. None of those opponents had a higher wage bill. Each defeat came after concerns had been publicly voiced that the team was ill-prepared. The collective loss in revenue after dropping into the Europa League would be north of £100m. This ongoing pattern of failure seems obvious to all apart from those running the show. In a recent meeting with supporters, chief executive Michael Nicholson claimed that club’s performance in Europe over 20 years had been ‘satisfactory’. Simply participating in group stage football these days is no longer an achievement, though. Following the recent revamp of UEFA’s competitions, it’s harder for a club like Celtic not to be involved. They increasingly have the look of participants in these tournaments, not competitors. Benjamin Niegrist reacts to a missed chance in horror Euro tie with Kairat Almaty Is that any wonder when those at the helm seem to have waved the white flag? Almost lost in his incredible attack on supporters at the AGM in November, Ross Desmond’s take on Celtic’s progress since reaching the UEFA Cup final in Seville was telling. ‘Those who talk about the club not having kicked on in Europe since 2003 ignore the enormous change in the management landscape of football in that period, ’ he stated. ‘It has created a gap which keeps growing. Most supporters understand that. ‘Of course, clubs can still punch above their financial weight and we should aspire to that. But if you swing and miss, you risk the very stability of the club and that would be profoundly irresponsible. ’ While the financial gap between the clubs at the top end of the leading five European leagues and the rest of the continent has clearly never been wider, this is not the gauge by which Celtic are presently measured. The club are repeatedly being out-thought and out-played by outfits with a fraction of their resources — Cluj, Bodo/Glimt and Midtjylland and the like. And the gap — in terms of the smart application of data and analytics to ensure better recruitment — is only growing. Celtic remain a big noise in Europe on account of their history and support, but their entire approach to signing players with potential is anachronistic. Nicolas Kuhn gave mighty Bayern Munich a fright with this goal for Celtic last February, but the Parkhead club have failed to push on since then Sitting with £77m in the bank while losing to a side of Almaty’s ilk was mortifying and surely put to bed for good the notion that it’s a well-run football club. Nicholson has claimed that Celtic aspired be ‘world class’ in everything it does. What does that actually mean? What’s the big vision for this behemoth of football and how do they plan to get there? It would be helpful if anyone would take the time to explain it. There’s clearly nothing to be gained from O’Neill venting his spleen on what he’s walked into behind the scenes for the second time this season, but one can imagine that he’s not overly impressed. A side which has been hollowed out across two diabolical transfer windows on Paul Tisdale’s watch is urgently in need of strengthening, yet the wheels of the recruitment machine seem to be locked. A generation after taking Celtic to unimaginable heights in Europe, the truth is that the Northern Irishman’s time and energy could be better spent than boarding a plane to Italy this week as a trip to Tynecastle comes into view. In a city famed for its cuisine, he’s got much bigger fish to fry.
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