ANALYSIS

SO, let’s get this straight.

Celtic were outclassed on their own park, lost two key players to injury, one which looked serious, committed some awful mistakes to lose a game and yet the stadium was rocking at the end as European football was secured.

The Scottish champions were well beaten and yet their nine points, plus RB Leipzig’s draw at home to Rosenborg – nobody saw that coming – proved to be enough for Brendan Rodgers’s side.

In all my years covering matches at this ground, there has never been a stranger one. It was literally glorious failure.

Would it have been dismal failure or where Celtic should expect to be if Rosenborg had not done them a huge favour?

There are arguments to be made for both points of view, I am somewhere between myself, although it is difficult not to keep going back to last January and the summer when both transfer windows closed with not a lot of good business being done.

However, they are through. Even if things had turned out differently, nine points including a win away is a decent return,

However, Celtic are in the draw, three wins is a decent return. But they are going to have to find something more in the last 32.

Still, the job was done.

1 Red Bull does give players wings – no wonder Salzburg are flying The Green Brigade’s held up a banner which demanded: “Get this bull **** out of football”, a reference to how a such a big company can plough fortunes into a relatively average club from hardly a top European league.

They sit about a thousand points at the top of their league which, even they would admit, they have bought.

Alas, that is football in 2018. There are players at Red Bull FC who would never think of playing for an Austrian side but were lured by a massive pay packet, plus the club will outspend ‘bigger’ rivals in the transfer market.

This is what Celtic, and many clubs are up against. Money doesn’t guarantee success but it helps in football. Salzburg are a right, good team. They played some stunning stiff at times.

Celtic are hardly paupers but last night’s opponents are in another planet when it comes to spending money.

Now the Celtic fans know what Hamilton Accies feel whenever they face Brendan Rodgers’s team.