UEFA, fly the flag, Tory Baroness, two score draws at Celtic Park and away tickets

It was perhaps a score draw in more ways than one at Celtic Park on Wednesday night. On the park Celtic, under the combined efforts of first Ange Postecoglou and now Brendan Rodgers, are beginning to re-establish the club as a top tier team in European football.

The two goals Celtic scored and that incredible first 50 minutes of football before the interval was as good as any Celtic side has played in the modern era against a top level Champions League opponent.

Work remains to be done in the transfer market, Celtic have no viable alternative at left-back to Greg Taylor and are in need of another striker. Reo Hatate’s ongoing injury problems are a concern but at least we have options in the middle of the park. If Kyogo picks up an injury we appear to be well short and given we have such a large squad, the lack of strikers is pretty remarkable really.

The former Celtic striker Chris Sutton – who played alongside Henrik Larsson and John Hartson – said after the game that he misses Giorgos Giakoumakis and you will see his point. Oh hasn’t done it this season coming off the bench and he’s unlikely to get a chance unless Kyogo is unfit or perhaps needs a rest at Easter Road.

From the summer signings Luis Palma and Paulo Bernardo (on loan from Benfica) look like first team ready quality additions but there is no doubt that a few more are needed to allow us to secure our place as a competitive team at the elite level in club football.

Off the park there was plenty of reasons for both the Green Brigade and the Celtic Board to be satisfied with the way things played out. During the week The Celtic Star called for the Green Brigade to stick to their flag show of support for the people of Palestine and not to go further with banners and on the separate issue with UEFA – pyrotechnics.

That’s how it played out with the only noticeable pyrotechnics coming from the Atletico supporters. That’s the Madrid club’s problem though.

The Green Brigade played their hand cleverly on Wednesday night and the flag display during You’ll Never Walk Alone was certainly extra special, with once again a mainstream media broadcaster, this time TNT Sports – as happened at Tynecastle at the weekend with Sky Sports and the BBC (no surprise there) – doing their best NOT to show the Palestine flag display. Yet enough Celtic supporters around the stadium filmed the poignant scenes on their mobiles and the images became widely available around the world and no doubt will have been greatly appreciated by the besieged Palestinian people who watched it.

The Celtic Board can be reasonably satisfied too. They made a HUGE donation this week to the Red Cross appeal regarding the humanitarian aid required for Palestine due to this crisis and they were seen to have done everything in their power to prevent any actions from supporters that may incur the wrath of UEFA, who themselves were advertising a Peace in Ukraine message around the stadium, a point that is available to the Celtic Board to mention ahead of any UEFA decision to get involved in looking at sanctions for Celtic relating to that Green Brigade flag display.

UEFA would be best advised to move on, on the basis that not even they can have their cake and eat it when it comes to bringing in or keeping out politics in football when it suits.

Their usual nice little earner from Celtic for pyrotechnic displays is also a non starter this time and that’s what we feared would have been used to justify a partial closer of a section of Celtic Park – presumably the North Curve – for the game against Feyenoord.

One of the best summaries of the back story behind what is happening in the Holy Land at the moment came from a Tory Baroness on Question Time last night and that would have been an uncomfortable listen for those supporting the Israeli Government and sitting on their hands while innocent people are being killed. Have a listen.

Now The Green Brigade and Celtic need to get together to discuss the separate issues surrounding unacceptable behaviour that is currently preventing the Ultras group from attending away matches. And it’s also worth mentioning that the method of ticket distribution by the club perhaps should be reviewed given the changing landscape of Scottish football in terms of clubs doing as much as possible to reduce or withdraw Celtic’s allocation of tickets for away matches for our support.

Hearts last week was a case in point where once again empty seats were preferred to paying punters and if they reckoned that they’d gain an advantage on the pitch as a result, they were way off the mark with that one.

Hearts halved our allocation previously then halved it again so logically three quarters of the expected away support never got a ticket for Tynecastle. Surely there is merit is sharing the away allocation among supporters rather than the same folk getting tickets every time? It’s at least worth a discussion.

Celtic took a major huff with The Celtic Star a few seasons ago when we complained about the allocation of tickets at Celtic Park after lockdown when there were limited number of supporters allowed to attend the first handful of games and some season ticket holders got tickets for the first two games while others got none.

As soon as this issue is mentioned vested interests take over but while the current system may well be the best option and should remain or other ideas should be looked at, it is at least not beyond having a debate and how away tickets are distributed.