Celtic v Arsenal

Celtic 0 Arsenal 2

Celtic: Boruc - Hinkel, Loovens, Caldwell, Fox - McGeady, Donati, N.Guemo, Brown, Maloney - Samaras
Arsenal: Almunia - Sagna, Gallas, Vermaelen, Clichy - Song, Denilson, Fabergas - Bendtner, Arshavin, van Persie

The so called Battle of Britiain saw Runners up of Scotland against 4th best place English side for a place in the Champions League, Arsenal the massive favourites to progress and be the first English team since Nottingham Forest in 1983 to win at Celtic Park.

Being a Celtic fan myself, You obviously have 2 thoughts, one from your head and one from your heart.

My head was saying we will struggle to win this tie, we need to keep a clean sheet and either nick a goal at Celtic Park or the Emirates, the more open the game is the less chance we have of going through.

My heart was saying "Come on, get fired into these English(European) pansies and we can go through.

Luckily it's my head thats writing this review rather than my heart.

At first I was disappointed by Mowbrays selection, going 4-5-1 at home is not what the fans want, but I could see his thinking, Arsenal going with Fabergas, Song and Denilson there is no way you can go 4-4-2 against a team like this, you'd never have the ball, Samaras is a good player to play up on his own, pace, power, height.

In my mind this also plays into Arsenals hands, you are letting them dictate the play, you need to take the game to them, and you can't do this with 1 upfront.

For the first 42minutes Celtic had matched Arsenal for every move, althought we hadn't troubled Almunia apart from Arshavin's offside goal, we were comfortable, then Gary Caldwell gave away a free kick about 25 yards out, Fabergas hits it, it comes off Gallas's arse and Celtic are 1-0 down.

The team was deflated, nothing that Tony said at half time could pick them up, you could see from the start the team made for the second 45, the were down, sloppy passes, concentration going, it could have been 3-0 by the hour mark, we slowly came back into it, Fortune and McDonald making a little difference, but just the gulf in class shown through, we didn't have another gear to go to.

Gary Caldwell's own goal summed the night up, 2-0 down, but not a direct shot went past Boruc, I am proud of my team, and look forward to the Europa cup, even though there is a 2nd leg to come, we will end up getting beat 4-0 on aggregate probably.

Arsenal played ok on the night, the front 3 were very quiet, Fabergas didn't have the game the Sky commentators made it out he had, Song, Denilson and Vermaelen were awesome, never missed a beat.

For Celtic, Landry N'Guemo looked very solid, got in the way of alot of passes and broke the play up well.

Overall it was a poor game by Arsenal's standards, just Celtic didn't have the quality to take any advantage.

MATCH VERDICT - 6/10

M.O.M - Thomas Vermaelen - Arsenal