NEIL LENNON has said that he believes that the early start can help Celtic earn their place in the Champions League group stages. The Irishman thinks that the one-off ties in August will be aided the Scottish Champions who have been continuing to prepare for the return to competitive action.
Celtic last played in March, beating St Mirren 5-0 at Parkhead. Although the Coronavirus pandemic exploded during the following week meaning that the league was ended prematurely with Celtic 13 points clear. The players can return to training in small non-contact groups but as Lennon acknowledges, football is a long way off of normality.
As reported by the Scotsman, Lennon is in favour of the UEFA’s condensed qualification because there won’t be a home advantage if, as expected, the games are played behind closed doors.
“It’s like everything at the moment – you need to adapt. If you’re finding things normal right now, you’re not doing things right.
“There is no normal at the moment, you’re working day to day and week to week, waiting on government guidelines and advice from the authorities. Uefa have come to a decision and it’s probably the right one in trying to condense it all. If the games are behind closed doors, then home advantage is not a massive difference. We’ve seen it with the results in the Bundesliga where a lot of the home teams haven’t won.
“Hopefully, it will benefit us in terms of Europe. The domestic season will hopefully have started and hopefully we’ll have a game or two under our belts by the time the qualifiers start.
“We’ll get them on the pitch before then and get them adapted to playing at Celtic Park with no fans – which is going to be really strange for them. It works both ways. Home advantage is a huge plus for us because of the support we have.
“I wouldn’t say we’ll be disadvantaged as such, but players love to play in front of big crowds. It’s been really strange watching the English games without the supporters and the noise. But it’s something we are going to go with for now.”
Qualification to the Champions League group-stages would mitigate financial losses as a result of Coronavirus and this year, qualification has been streamlined and home advantage has been taken out of the equation.
Whilst there is no set date for the return to stadiums for spectators, supporters can take heart from news that Nicola Sturgeon will announce changes to the lockdown measures and be hopeful that a return to grounds can happen sooner rather than later.
Last week UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin said that he expects supporters to be back into grounds ‘sooner rather than later’.
As Celtic chase 10IAR, it would be a heartbreaking blow if we were unable to be in the stadium as the club chase Scottish footballing history. As long as the virus is at large, we can’t expect a return any time soon but we can look forward and hope that it we get through it and can get back into the grounds.