Going Dutch

A crucial Champions League match this evening as Ajax try to plot their way through to the last 16 against Borussia Dortmund.

Qualification - which looked unlikely after two opening defeats - would see Ajax in the second stage of the competition for the first time since 2006 and for only the second time since 2000.

A fallow period for a once imperious European side. The Champions League and the explosion of TV money has made many clubs richer but the gap between the super wealthy and the middle class has grown.

Ajax, from a modest domestic league, have fallen foul of the UEFA revolution.

They impressed in large parts of their double header against Manchester City though, taking four points and rekindling the dream.

That turnaround in European form seemed to carry a domestic tariff as they slipped behind in the Eredivisie.

Certainly on Saturday night against second bottom VVV Venlo they looked to have their mind on other things.

The 2-0 win was comfortable enough - VVV came to defend and didn't offer much else - but it was a perfunctory performance.

Christian Eriksen was particularly out of sorts while Christian Poulsen's man of the match award was based on little more than making fewer mistakes than his colleagues.

A fine free kick from Derk Boerrigter looked to be enough to settle the game before league debutant Danny Hoesen removed any doubt.

VVV might have regretted their lack of ambition with Robert Cullen too lightweight and too isolated up front to give their rare attacks any real threat.

While the home fans housed in the south of the Amsterdam Arena can still make the stadium tremble when their in the mood, for a long stretch of the evening the biggest cheers greeted the sight of Jari Litmanen on the big screens.

Litmanen, like current Ajax manager Frank de Boer, is a reminder of more fruitful adventures in Europe.

On Saturday it was hard to escape the conclusion that the present side are focused more on recapturing some of that European glory than on mundane domestic chores. They run the risk of being unable to raise their game.

The Amsterdam Arena, apparently still not wholly embraced by the faithful, was somewhere short of full but remains imposing enough.

And you can get a beer. Civilisation still exists outside of Scotland.

I even got a free programme although it will take me six months and an Dutch-English dictionary to read it.

The name is misleading though. The stadium is too far out of the city to feel like Amsterdam.

We parked in a multi-storey attached a shopping centre, making our way down escalators and passed bland coffee bars and chain stores to get to the stadium.

The romance of modern football. As The Beautiful South so nearly sang: "This could be Amsterdam or anywhere..."

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Hearts still beating

I'm currently in the Netherlands.

In a town called Dordrecht.

The town where Craig Levein sourced Mark de Vries, that one time hammer of Hibs, for Hearts.

It's just over a decade since de Vries arrived at Tynecastle.

Hearts have crammed a lot of living into those ten years.

At stages over the past fortnight it has looked like the club might have been no more when I returned from my Dutch perambulations.

That immediate threat has now passed, the taxman has agreed terms over outstanding payments.

But Hearts remain at a crossroads.

In the short term funding has to be found to see them through the season, to meet wage bills, pay future taxes and cover overheads.

And in the longer term answers need to be found about the future direction of the club.

They've found themselves in a similar position before. They were in a similar spot in the aftermath of the de Vries era, when things were grim and Vladimir Romanov stepped in with funding, the promise of salvation and a barrel load of dreams.

He's taken them on quite a trip - I need no reminder of the most recent good times - but the eventual destination remains unclear.

There has been little to suggest over the crisis of the past couple of weeks that Romanov is set to start funding Hearts again.

Yet it is his banking group that controls the club's debt. Hearts remain his club, their assets his assets.

He is part of the all powerful new footballing aristocracy. Men of various means who revel in the 'cult of the owner' and have a dictatorial grip over their estates.

Not paid your basketball team? Make a joke about sending them food parcels. Let them eat cake indeed.

Preening and egotistical, these modern day Marie Antoinettes lap up the adulation but they never forget that they have their clubs in a vice-like grip.

Football seems paralysed in the face of such interlocutors. We've seen over the past couple of weeks, as we saw in the summer and we've seen elsewhere before, how governments and footballing authorities are quick to react when things go wrong.

Yet it is always reactive. There seems no way - or no will - to make proactive changes in the way clubs are run.

Either clubs are businesses - and thus at the mercy of fly-by-nights, asset strippers and rich men who get bored - or they really are special institutions with a unique place in our communities.

In which case a way of protecting that status should be found.

Because, as events at Tynecastle have shown, it is a universal truth of such situations that it is the fans who will be shafted.

It will be the fans who most keenly feel the emotional threat of oblivion, the fans who are asked to dig ever deeper to find the cash needed for survival.

And the Hearts fans have responded, social media has been harnessed to launch fundraising initiatives, spread the key messages about what is needed and why and incubate a spirit of fraternalism in getting the job done.

They will need to keep that effort going in the face of an uncertain future.

Already this week we've seen attempts made to buy the club from Romanov, attempts build a sustainable Hearts with fan involvement at its heart.

So far those moves have been rebuffed. Romanov holds the cards and isn't for dealing yet. Salvation remains within his gift. But so to do the most immediate routes into administration or liquidation.

Thus Hearts might stand on the brink of an uncertain but sustainable future or more of the threats and panic of the last couple of weeks.

That the state of Romanov's pride or the fluctuations of the Lithuanian banking system might decide that future should be a warning about how football clubs are governed.

I've been asked a lot how I feel about this situation over the last few days.

I have no sympathy for Romanov or any others who have steered the club to this stage. If - and this remains to be seen - the Hearts situation does indeed begin to mirror that of Rangers then Hearts must be dealt with in the same way.

I have a lot of sympathy for clubs who have made swingeing cuts, worked hard to keep up with their tax obligations and make payments on time while the quality they provide on the pitch and the service they offer off the pitch has suffered. Now they find yet another club in their midst has become an extreme financial basket case.

And I have sympathy for the fans. It's not pleasant to think your club might disappear from the footballing map.

Not all Hibs fans share that view. Some have been revelling in the prospect of Heart' demise.

Football means different things to different people. I think rivalry enhances the game. You need a rival to have a rivalry.

I've never thought of Edinburgh as a city divided by football nor football as a reason to hate this club or that club, this fan or that fan. Dislike passionately over the course of 90 minutes maybe. But never hate.

Maybe I'm a man out of time, longing for days when footballing rivalries didn't mean disengaging your brain and leaving your manners outside by the coal bunker.

But there we are. As much as dark times and never ending gloating can upset one's equilibrium, I'm not sure the demise of any club is a cause for celebration.

What the fans have shown over the last few days is that Hearts won't die. If even darker times lie ahead we can be confident that some form of the club will remain in Scottish football.

Hearts aren't finished.

We can only hope that the era of men like Vladimir Romanov soon will be.

Scottish football: Reconstruction rivals

"The battle lines were drawn months ago and the main players have been digging the trenches.

"But listen closely and you will hear the first volleys being fired as Scottish football edges closer, yet again, to civil war."

So spake the BBC's Chris McLaughlin as the latest contributions emerged in the eternal "reconstruction of Scottish football" debate.

The Scottish Football League will announce its plans first: a top league of 16, a 12 team second division and 18 teams in the bottom tier. Celtic and Rangers will be invited to enter "colt" teams. And the SPL will be disbanded, the "big" clubs returning to the SFL fold.

"Haud yer wheesht" say the SPL. They've their own plans and they don't include being disbanded. Rather: a top flight of 16, an SPL2 of 12 teams and a third flight of 12 teams.

Forget our romantic notions of a pyramid structure, of a constructive dialogue involving all stakeholders - including fans.

Where are we after our strange summer, the McLeish Report before that and the hints that the SFA were building up to bang heads together to get things moving forward?

We're nowhere. It seems hot air doesn't fuel the engines of change.

On one side the SPL, as defensive of its territory as ever, on the other a newly emboldened SFL.

And never the twain shall meet.

Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals - The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln is a brilliant study of how Lincoln weaved different points of view into his presidency, to shape the America he wanted to emerge from its most tumultuous period.

From Barack Obama down many have adopted the book as a leadership guide, towering narrative history as self help manual.

Lincoln strengthened his grip on the White House and the country by drawing opponents of different hues into his inner circle.

Now I've no idea of reading habits inside Hampden and it is a churlish habit of football - this blog included - to hurl military descriptions at events on and off the field.

But for the same to happen at Hampden we must rely on the leadership of Campbell Ogilvie and Stewart Regan.

We must rely on those with different views to air them openly, without agendas, and be prepared to sacrifice their own ambition to build a better future for Scottish football.

What we're likely to get is the SFA abdicating responsibility for as long as possible as an increasingly bitter argument between the SPL and the SFA results in either the status quo or a bad fudge, our promised utopia replaced by the worst of both worlds.

A leadership vacuum filled by selfish bickering, the fans ignored, the hope of lasting, positive change ever more forlorn.

It wouldn't take Lincoln and his team of rivals to sort out Scottish football.

Unfortunately Screaming Lord Sutch would be an improvement on the current mob masquerading as "guardians of the game."

Scottish football is not doomed. Too many people care too much.

But nor does constructive change look likely any time soon. And the longer the spectacle remains bald men fighting over a comb, the harder the recovery will be.

Save the Leith One?

A strange Tuesday for Hibs. With their city rivals toiling under the threat of financial calamity, it was Hibs who ended the day with a dismissed employee and something of a PR storm.

At half time in Sunday's game against Dundee United the tannoy at Easter Road blasted out a few lines of George Harrison's Taxman.

A dig at Hearts, a gentle, chuckle inducing diversion during the tedium of half time.

A short blast of a short Beatles track that was picked up in a few reports on Monday morning, was described by one Hearts supporter's representative as "crass" - which it was - and the world continued to turn.

End of story?

Not quite.

It later emerged that the man responsible for playing the track, Hibs' tannoy announcer Willie Docherty, had been relieved of his duties at the club.

And so something of a social media storm developed. A 'Bring Back Willie Docherty' Facebook page has over 1100 likes at the time of writing, a #JusticeForWillieDocherty hashtag has sprung up on Twitter and forums - on both sides of the city divide - have seen fans post their support for the "Leith One."

Eventually Hibs released a statement:

The Club stressed that speculation that the action had been taken as a song played may have offended supporters of another club is not correct. 

Rather the action has been taken because the individual chose to wilfully disregard specific instructions given in the pre-match briefing which itself was consistent with guidance given during the week in the run-up to the match at Easter Road Stadium on Sunday, which was broadcast live on television.

The stadium announcer is not an employee of the Club, but is contracted to provide the service. In doing so, he operates as part of the Club's official channels of communications - which also includes the Club website and match day programme. 

Under SPL and SFA rules, the Club is directly responsible for what the Stadium Announcer does, says and plays. For that reason, the Club has specific guidelines in place and before each match detailed briefings take place. 

These reflect the values and behaviours the Club and its Supporters believe Hibernian FC should stand for. The conduct of other clubs is a matter for them. 

Before our recent home match against Dundee United discussions took place and specific instructions were given. The individual concerned has admitted that he deliberately breached the terms of the instructions the Club had given. The Club was left with no option but to take the course of action it did.

So there we are.

There are rules in place and they were broken. Specific instructions were given for this game - I'm unsure why the game being broadcast on TV is relevant - and they were ignored.

Why are rules in place if not to govern the fun?

Maybe playing the song - or a snippet of the song - was a needless dig at Hearts, at a situation Hibs have no interest in getting involved in.

But surely it was an inoffensive enough aberration. Certainly not one that necessitated the club setting itself so apart from what seems to be the prevailing public opinion, to make such a magnificent job of turning a molehill into a mountain.

In their statement Hibs said: "This is not an issue about having or not having a sense of humour."

If you have to point that out then you're probably doing a poor job of showing people that you've actually got a sense of humour.

Hibs went top of the league on Sunday and their star striker was called into the Scotland squad. It's taken them a gargantuan mishandling of a daft situation to get people talking about a song and a DJ instead.

Willie Docherty might have shot himself in the foot on Sunday. He's far from the only person guilty of that at Easter Road.

Banter

A lot of the arguments around Wille Docherty's treatment have centred on Hibs becoming the latest organisation to launch an attack on football "banter."

I'm not quite sure what that means.

Does embracing "banter" mean Tim Lovejoy and Paul Merson should front Sportscene?

And "banter" can be used to cover a lot of ills.

If Hibs wanted to make a stand about something that happened on Sunday then they might have chosen to speak out about the "refugee" chants continually and tiresomely aimed at Rudi Skacel.

Harmless "banter" in the eyes of some.

But harmless "banter" that was aimed at Skacel even when Shefki Kuqi was on the pitch for Hibs.

Kuqi was a Kosovar Albanian immigrant to Finland, as his family escaped the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. They were refugees.

Go figure.

I find Skacel as hard to warm to as any Hibs fan. But he's not a refugee. Which makes the song both nonsensical and potentially more offensive to a Hibs player than its target.

A "banter" double whammy.

If Hibs really wanted to launch a war on "banter" on the back of Sunday afternoon they missed the target.

League Cup: History men?

Is the Scottish Communities League Cup moving inexorably towards a Celtic v Rangers clash.

Celtic progressed to the semi final with a minimum of fuss last night, thumping St Johnstone 5-0 at home.

Rangers need to make history to join them, becoming the first Third Division side to reach the league cup semi finals.

We seem to be cocking a snook at history this week.

No sooner had Kilmarnock managed a twice in a lifetime win at Celtic than St Mirren gazumped them with a once in a lifetime cup win in Aberdeen.

A first since before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Archdukes are best advised to avoid the Sarajevo area.

So Celtic and St Mirren are through, Hampden awaits.

Who will join them? Rangers or Inverness, Dundee United or Hearts.

The honest answer: I haven't got a scooby.

Hearts won comfortably on their last trip to Tannadice and they are a point ahead in the league having played two more games.

Both have enjoyed sound wins this season without finding any consistency. And although Hearts managed three goals in their league win over United, neither side has been prolific.

Hearts have scored twelve goals in eleven games, United eleven in nine.

The league form doesn't suggest a cup classic. You might have said the same about Reading and Arsenal.

6-7 remains unlikely tonight. United are 13/10, Hearts 2/1 and the draw 12/5.

I think it could be tight. Both teams are 9/1 to win on penalties, United 10/1 to win after extra time and Hearts 12/1. If it's a lottery at that stage then it could be a generous one.

I'll back half time/full time draw/draw at 4/1. It could be a long night.

And for those who believe in fate: Rudi Skacel is 11/2 first goalscorer and 7/4 to score any time.

What of Rangers and Inverness?

A win over Motherwell in the last round will have proved to Rangers that SPL clubs should hold no fear for them at home.

The trick for Inverness will be to avoid looking as scared of their own shadows as Motherwell did that night.

A few weeks ago I'd have felt that Rangers were big favourites for this one.

Now I'm not so sure. Inverness have shown a certain character in building an unbeaten run and have weighed in with a fair whack of goals.

SPL form meets a Third Division club with both a point to prove and a number of players who would get in most SPL teams.

A Rangers win is 21/20, the draw 12/5 and Inverness 5/2.

Those odds are justified but not overwhelmingly so. Pay your money, take your pick.

I'll take Inverness to win 2-1 at 10/1. I might even be daft and expand that to 60/1 with Billy McKay scoring first.

But I'm not convinced of my good sense in doing so.

As Motherwell found to their cost playing the occasion is probably more of a risk for Inverness than Rangers.

Rangers, of course, are playing history as well.

But history's not having a good week in Scottish football.

All odds from Ladbrokes #gameon

Always remembering www.gambleaware.co.uk

SPL: Motherwell v Hibs

An acquaintance, for whom the glass is forever half empty, insisted to me last Sunday evening that Hibs would be in the bottom three of the SPL after the next three games.

That is mathematically possible. And this particular lover of life had, unlike me, endured the trip to Dingwall to see goalkeeper Ben Williams do a Highland fling in losing three goals and three points to Ross County.

He also told me that he "fears" for Hibs at Fir Park tonight. He didn't quantify the extent of that fearfulness but his solemnity of tone suggested Motherwell winning 3-0 or 4-0 - at 16/1 and 28/1 - wouldn't be outlandish.

Clearly I've got some really quite depressing friends. But his pessimism is indicative of where this SPL season is going.

Last week Hibs again displayed a certain fragility that earlier results might have masked.

That's enough to convince many that talk of (bottle) green shoots of recovery is overstated.

But if you're convinced that Pat Fenlon is turning things round at Easter Road you can point to some encouraging wins and some sound performances.

The optimist will argue that a win against Motherwell tonight would push Hibs into second place in the SPL table. That's progress.

The truth, as is so often case, probably lurks somewhere in between for Hibs and most other clubs.

A few weeks ago Motherwell were looking to go clear at the top of the table. They've since dropped back into the pack but a win tonight will take them from sixth to third.

16 points separate leaders Celtic from Dundee at the bottom. But only eight points split second placed Inverness and Dundee United in eleventh.

While Celtic haven't yet made the dash for glory that many predicted there does seem to have been a levelling among ten of the twelve clubs.

That might make the league thrillingly competitive or an orgy of mediocrity. Maybe it can be both at the same time.

It will also make it harder for anyone else to track Celtic if they do make a break. And it makes predicting the outcome of a majority of games something of a lottery.

It looks that way this evening.

Another Friday night experiment - although this perhaps owes more to ESPN filling a schedule hole than a commitment to improving the fan experience.

Tonight is actually a good chance to track the progress of Friday night football. This is third Friday game between these two since 1995 and the second in two seasons.

The TV free and abandoned match last year - Pat Fenlon's first game in charge of Hibs - drew an attendance of around 6700. That was a slightly larger crowd than turned up for Sky's live goalless draw in 1995.

If you're going to have an experiment it is useful to be able to draw comparisons. Tonight offers those comparisons.

Will the Friday night pioneers who turn up be entertained this evening?

Goalless draws (10/1) are rare indeed in this fixture these days. This season Hibs have have looked less comfortable away from home, conceding 11 goals in 5 matches and taking just four points.

Motherwell - whose early season fluency seems to have deserted them - have taken five points from four home games, scoring six goals and conceding five.

And both come into this on the back of away defeats to teams below them in the league.

Tonight's odds - Motherwell are 21/20, Hibs 5/2 and the draw 12/5 - actually push me towards the draw.

A scoring draw.

1-1 is 6/1 while 2-2 is 14/1.

I always need to back Hibs though - although I suspect that this might contribute to whatever jinx it is they are toiling under at any given time - so I'll take a 2-1 away win at 11/1.

Combining that with Eoin Doyle as first goalscorer - for no other reason than an increasing appreciation for the cut of his jib - swells the odds to 50/1.

And because one day he must surely treat the SPL to his flying geriatric goal celebration I'll take my normal flutter on Shefki Kuqi as last goalscorer at 8/1.

One day.

Am I confident? No.

But a predictable unpredictability might be the SPL's calling card this season.

All odds from Ladbrokes #gameon

Always remembering www.gambleaware.co.uk

Barcelona v Celtic: An underdog's life

Having finally cleared one long standing Champions League hurdle with their away win in Moscow, Celtic must topple giants this evening.

Barcelona away is a fixture that makes most teams tremble. It looks a hopeless journey for our plucky Scottish champions, a side who have only just registered a maiden away win in this competition.

If Celtic will be prohibitive favourites in all their domestic matches this year they must accept the role of underdogs tonight.

As Gary Linton recalled in his post last night, it's not that long ago since Celtic were knocking Barcelona out of the UEFA Cup or taking a rare Champions League away point at the Nou Camp.

Not that long ago, but it feels like a footballing lifetime. In the intervening years Barcelona have come as close to any team of our generation to reinventing how football should be played.

Celtic, in common with most sides, have been stranded in their wake, stuck playing the football of mere mortals.

Abandon hope all ye who enter Catalonia?

Perhaps.

But, as Jose Mourinho was rather narkily explaining recently, Barcelona are not currently Spanish or European champions.

There has also been a vulnerability at times, a reliance on a mismatched defence made up of converted midfielders.

Unfortunately for Celtic they retain the ability to simply score more than the opposition no matter how many they concede.

Every silver lining has a cloud.

All this could be good news for the myopic Celtic fan or the neutral with an inkling for a shock.

Because a winning bet on Celtic this evening would be a lucrative affair.

A Barcelona win is priced at 1/12. A Celtic win is a whopping 20/1. The draw is 10/1.

If a football match is a two horse race then the bookies see this one as a sprint between Frankel and Robert Louis Stevenson's Modestine.

Gary's prediction of a 2-1 Barcelona win is 12/1. By contrast a 1-0 win for Celtic is out at 40/1, remarkably the same price as a 7-0 win for Barcelona.

Celtic's ambitions in this competition are likely to be realised away from their two clashes with Barcelona.

Anything tonight would be a huge result and a massive bonus. It looks highly unlikely.

Celtic will need to thrive without much sight of the ball, they'll also need to figure out a way of stopping the superlative stealing Lionel Messi without giving Barcelona's other stars room to thrive. It could be like trying to herd cats.

Better sides than this Celtic team have failed to do any of that successfully.

I've got to - and I suspect I'll not be a lone voice here - plump for a comfortable Barcelona win.

3-0 at 11/2 or 4-1 at 12/1.

David deserves more glory in this competition. But tonight should belong to Goliath.

All odds from Ladbrokes #gameon

Always remembering www.gambleaware.co.uk

Barcelona v Celtic: The magic men

Tomorrow night Celtic face the sternest test of the Champions League campaign with a trip to face Barcelona. Spanish football enthusiast Gary Linton, the Messi of Twitter @AlbaEspana, takes a look at a Barcelona side where attacking brilliance and a winning mentality continue to overcome a makeshift defence.

The best team to ever play the game, they play the most beautiful football in the world. They’re not human beings, they’re all robots.

All these things and many, many other things have been said about this Barcelona side. To be honest, it’s all true, well maybe not the robots part, but frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if it was!

They have Messi, they have Xavi and they have Iniesta. That’s not all, they have Sergio Busquets, Victor Valdes, Jordi Alba, David Villa the list could go on and on.

What Celtic must realise and what Celtic manager Neil Lennon already knows, is this side will hurt you from all angles, and they’ll hurt you bad.

It’s not a one man, two man or even a three man team, it’s an eleven man team, coaching staff, substitutes, tea ladies, kit men, pitch man and of course the most important part of this fantastic and special club, the fans.

Neil Lennon, the Celtic manager, was in the Celtic side that beat Barcelona in the 2003/04 UEFA Cup fourth round. Víctor Valdés, Carles Puyol and Xavi Hernández played in Celtic's 1-0 first-leg victory, and they all featured again in the goalless second leg. That is a result that will stay with Celtic fans that were there for those two legs, it will stay with Lennon and all other players who managed to triumph over this fantastic side.

Because since then it’s not looked so good for Celtic, it’s not looked so good for many clubs (we’ll get back to that a little later). Barcelona in recent years found a new man to manage them, they found Mr Pep Guardiola.

A man who won it all with Barcelona, a man who toppled all that came his and his team’s way, he may or may not have ‘built’ this team, but he certainly put his stamp on it, made them play his way and made them win his way. The way that’s got them mentioned by almost every single football fan as the greatest ever side to play the game.

He’s now left, he’s no longer at Barcelona but all the players still are. Their new boss is Pep’s second hand man, Tito Vilanova. With Tito in charge they’re still the same old winning Barcelona. Tito has been in charge of Barcelona for 13 matches, in those 13 matches he’s won 11, drawn one and been defeated once.

Yes, back to the part where I mentioned it’s not looked so good for Celtic against Barcelona since that 2003/04 UEFA Cup win.

In 2004/2005 Henrik Larsson struck against his old club with Deco and Ludovic Giuly also scoring when Barcelona won 3-1 at Celtic in the UEFA Champions League group stage. Lennon appeared along with Valdés, Puyol and Xavi and all four were present in the Camp Nou return, together with Andrés Iniesta, a 60th-minute substitute. It finished 1-1 after John Hartson cancelled out Samuel Eto'o's strike.

A couple of seasons went by and Barcelona and Celtic met again, this time in the 2007/08 round of 16. It was going well for the Scottish side; they went 1-0 up through Vennegoor of Hesselink in the 16th minute, and then found themselves level moments later when Messi scored, they then went back in front with a goal from Barry Robson. It wasn’t enough and eventually goals from Henry and a second from Messi saw Barcelona win the first leg, the second leg was all to play for, but Barcelona did what Barcelona do, they won. They won the return leg 1-0 courtesy of a Xavi goal for a 4-4 aggregate victory.

Now let’s get back to Tito Vilanova and today’s Barcelona. As I said  they are "winners" with just a single defeat so far for Tito at the hands of Real Madrid in the super cup second leg. However, since that defeat they’re unbeaten in their last eight games, with seven wins and a single draw, again against Real Madrid, this time in the league.

Messi’s on form, 27 goals for club and country in his last 16 appearances, Xavi’s back, Iniesta’s back and so is David Villa. The likelihood, looking at past meetings and recent results, is a Barcelona victory.

But wait: there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Barcelona do have "some" problems. Pique doesn’t look likely to feature in the game, Puyol is out injured, Abidal is still sidelined as he’s been for the whole season and of course Dani Alves is still out injured.

So they have to go with a 'make shift' back line. Young Montoya has recently filled in at right back; they've got to go with the centre back pairing of one former midfielder turned defender in Javier Mascherano and a midfielder playing as defender who still likes to act at times as a midfielder in Alex Song. That’s unless Tito goes with Adriano (a left back or left midfielder) at centre back but even then you’d still have a very 'unreliable' and not 'up to scratch' defence.

They are also missing a pivotal part of the 'defence' in defensive midfielder Sergio Busquets who is suspended following his red card on match day two.

Now I know, I know what you’re thinking, Barcelona are Barcelona and whoever plays will fill in just fine. You may be right.

But I know one thing for sure; I’d rather go up against a back line like that instead of a back line featuring Pique, Puyol and Alves.

Don’t believe me? Just ask Sevilla who put two past them a couple of weeks back, or even Spartak Moscow who did the same. If you don’t believe either of them just ask Deportivo La Coruna who, just this weekend, put four past them, that’s right four.

They did in the end lose the game 5-4 but, come on, I said 'some light' at the end of the tunnel.

Prediction: Barcelona 2-1

Possible starting XI: Valdes – Alba, Mascherano, Song, Montoya – Iniesta, Xavi, and Cesc Fabregas – Tello, Messi, Pedro.

Match facts: Celtic

• The 3-2 win at FC Spartak Moscow was Celtic's first in 21 attempts away from home in the UEFA Champions League. They had lost 19 of the previous 20.
• Fraser Forster and Scott Brown have played all 540 minutes of Celtic's campaign, qualifying included.
• Ten of the side that started on match day one were making their group stage debuts, with Brown the sole exception.
• Victor Wanyama's next yellow card will incur a ban.

Match facts: Barcelona 

• Barcelona have won 99 games in the UEFA Champions League, group stage to final, and scored 346 goals.
• Lionel Messi has been UEFA Champions League top scorer for an unprecedented four successive campaigns.
• Xavi Hernández has completed 236 of his 266 passes so far, both the highest in the competition. Sergio Busquets and Javier Mascherano are second and third respectively.
• Barcelona have completed 1,400 of their 1,627 passes; both competition highs.
  

Read Gary's blog at Alba España