CRAIG GORDON had practically nothing to do against AEK Athens over the two legs of the tie, he was blameless for the three goals conceded and watched on in frustration as his Celtic team-mates managed to shoot themselves in the foot in both ties.
Anyone who watched the Vid1 1 – 2 AEK Athens game last night in the first leg of the Champions League Play-off will have noted that BOTH sides were very poor indeed and the Hungarians would have the ideal opponents for Celtic.
So Craig Gordon has as much right as all of us to feel the frustration of going out of the Champions League so stupidly. He looked ahead to the Europa League and this evening’s tie in Lithuania against their Champions Suduva, which kicks off at 6pm UK time incidentally.
“We’re favourites in most games and we’ll come here looking to impose our style of play and perform the way we know we can,” Gordon said.
“If we do that then we’ll give ourselves a great opportunity to progress.
“We just want to win this game and get into the group stages – we want European football. Okay, we wanted to try and get into the Champions League group stages and we didn’t manage to do that this year.
“However, we still want to achieve success in Europe and this is next best competition to do that.
“We need to get to the group stages first and then you can look at your group and see the possibilities of trying to come through.
“But we have to fully focused on this double-header to give ourselves that opportunity.”
Gordon was also asked for his views on Dedryck Boyata who was scheduled to return in this game after his costly strike last week.
Boyata has NOT travelled to Lithuania – dress this up any way you like but the real reason is likely to involve him being cup-tied for the Group stages if he plays for Celtic in this Europa League Play-off.
The quicker this guy is gone from Celtic the better.
Here’s what the Celtic goalie had to say about his Belgian ‘teammate’ yesterday.
“He’s been a really good player and a big part of what we’ve achieved over the last few seasons. He’s come back and played quickly after injuries and done everything he could for the team and been a leader, especially among the French-speaking boys in the team.
“There’s a lot of good things he’s brought to the club so, from a players’ point of view, there’s no problem in him coming back to training. Dedryck has been well-liked in his entire time amongst the players so it was just a case of getting back to business and him coming back in and training the way he always has done.”
