Live

LIVE: OTB Breakfast

07:30 AM-10:00 AM

LIVE: OTB Breakfast
Advertisement
Soccer

Whats The Scale of Your Ambition?

So Celtic are out of the Champions League for this season. It's the first time they've missed out...



Whats The Scale of Your Ambiti...
Soccer

Whats The Scale of Your Ambition?

So Celtic are out of the Champions League for this season.

It's the first time they've missed out on the group stage action since Brendan Rodgers became manager two years ago.

The Hoops lost 2-1 at AEK Athens in the second leg of the third qualifying round, to be knocked out 3-2 on aggregate.

To even make the Europa League now, Celtic need to come through a play-off against either Latvian side Spartaks Jurmala or Lithuanian club Suduva.

After a week soundtracked by reports of unrest between Rodgers and the board over a failure to strengthen the squad - and amplified by Saturday's defeat at Hearts - Celtic were two down after 50 minutes in Athens.

Scott Sinclair's header with 12 minutes to play left Celtic needing to score once more to progress to the play-off round on away goals.

But the Greek champions held on to deny their Scottish counterparts a tie with Hungarian side MOL Vidi.

It's a worrying sign for Rodgers.

Apart from anything else the club will lose out on an estimated £40 million from various broadcast and sponsorship kickbacks due to not being involved in the Champions League.

Now for the first time since his arrival, some ardent Hoops fans feel the club is going backwards in European football.

Rodgers he saw the signs, made the noises, but all in vain.

To be fair to him he didn't blame his failure to get a green light to do some summer spending as the reason for their exit.

It is "not rocket science" to say Celtic should have strengthened as they attempted to qualify for the Champions League, says Rodgers.  There have been reports of growing unrest between Rodgers and the board over a failure to sign several targets.

The question Celtic need to ask themselves is how badly do they want European glory?

They can limp along in their domestic league for the next years but the reality is if they have real ambition they will have to open their cheque book.

Will Rodgers hang around if they don't?

Watch this space!

Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!

Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.


Read more about

Soccer