Wednesday, 26 August 2009

Celtic out of Champions League

Arsenal 3, Celtic 1 (5-1)

Arsenal removed Celtic from Europe's premier competition by winning handsomely at the Emirates. However, there was a good deal of controversy about their opening goal. A neat move on the edge of the box saw Eduardo (the Brazilian-cum-Croatian) over hit the ball towards Artur Boruc. Boruc went down to collect the ball whereupon Eduardo dived. The Spanish referee, Gonzalez, who made a glaring error in the Scotland-Italy match in 2007, awarded a penalty kick. Television proved conclusively that the 'Croat did a Borat' to con the ref. Eduardo outfoxed Boruc with the kick. Celtic had the ball in the net a few minutes later but the flag for offside was raised correctly.

The 3000 or so Celtic fans in the 59,960 crowd were in good voice throughout but saw Arsenal finally score a 'proper' goal when neat footwork from Bendtner helped set up Eboue who scored from 12 yards. Arshavin came on after that and scored a third to wrap the whole tie up. In the very last move of the match, Loovens lofted in a crossfield ball which Donati dispatched with aplomb. Celtic now enter the inaugural Europa League. The draw is at 12 noon (GMT) on Friday.

Celtic: Boruc, Hinkel, Loovens, Caldwell (O'Dea 46), Fox, McGeady (Flood 60), Brown, Donati, Maloney (Naylor 60), McDonald, Fortune

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