Celtic Fall To The Europa League At The Emirates

Arsenal 3 Celtic 1 (Agg. 5-1)

Celtic were eliminated from the the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday evening after losing 3-1 to The Gunners in north London.

Celtic's aim in the second leg of this tie had been to score first and thus put pressure on Arsene Wenger's young Arsenal side, in the hopes that they would then make mistakes that could be exploited by the visitors.

Despite early pressure, the first goal came at the other end after Eduardo fell as Boruc came out to challenge him. Taking the penalty himself, Eduardo (who was accused of diving by the Celtic players) made no mistake and the tie stood at 3-0 to the Arsenal on aggregate.

Emmanuel Eboue made it 4-0 in the 53rd minute after a superb run and Andrey Arshavin ended the tie as a competitive fixture a couple of minutes later as he scored soon after coming off the bench.

Donati added a consolation goal for the Bhoys in extra time but it was a case of too little, too late as Celtic fell through to the Europa League.

Manager Tony Mowbray was full of praise for his players after the game but insisted that their chances of winning the tie were going to be tougher after conceding the first goal: "The first goal was always going to be crucial. If we had got it, you would have had a more interesting spectacle.

"The fact that Arsenal scored it allows their real high-quality players to relax a bit more and play at their own pace.

"When you try and play high up against such quality players, you are asking for trouble.

"That is the way it panned out - but I could not question the desire and effort of my team."

The draw for the group stage of the Europa League has left Celtic in Group C facing tough opposition in Hamburg SV, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Rapid Vienna - the team that knocked Aston Villa out of the playoff stage.

Despite the obvious challenges, Celtic have a good chance of progressing to the knock-out stage, if not eventually to the final itself; as defender Danny Fox put it:

"Who knows how far we can go? We went into the Dinamo Moscow game and few people expected us to win, but we did and played a very good style of football. If we do that, we'll do well."

On Tuesday, Celtic were handed a tie with fellow SPL outfit Falkirk in the third round of the Co-operative Insurance Cup. The match will be played on either Tuesday September 22 or Wednesday September 23.

On Sunday, Aiden McGeady saw a red card in Celtic's 1-0 win away to Hibs. Celtic too the lead in the 40th minute, courtesy of a great header from Georgios Samaras, who got on the end of an excellent cross from Andreas Hinkel.

McGeady picked up a yellow card in the 22nd minute after bringing down Derek Riordan and was awarded his second, and thus sent off after he himself fell under the challenge of Paul Hanlon.

The referee judged that Hanlon had pulled out of the tackle and decided that McGeady had himself dived.

Celtic defender Darren O'Dea, had been given on loan to Coca Cola Championship team Reading despite having just signed a new three-year deal at Parkhead.

He seemed happy with the arrangement that will see him get more starting time. "It's obviously great to sign a new deal but it's more important that I get out now and play football," the 22-year-old told the club website.