'Celtic need a new approach to compete in Europe'

Tino, The Celtic Exchange podcast

Six-nil scorelines are like buses. You wait on one for ages and then two come along at once.

That’s how the saying goes, right?

Enjoyable as the win on Sunday against Aberdeen was, the disparity between Celtic’s domestic and European results have become all too common in recent times.

Since the turn of the century, domestic dominance has become the order of the day for Celtic with the Hoops claiming 17 of 24 Scottish league titles during that time.

We’ve won eleven out of the last twelve, with five Trebles thrown in for good measure.

For now at least Celtic are the undisputed top team in Scotland. Europe however is a different story altogether – as our latest result away to Atletico Madrid has shown.

When Brendan Rodgers returned in the summer almost all of us presumed it would be to oversee a summer spending spree, designed to restore our credibility at European football’s top table.

And whilst Luis Palma, Yang Hyun-Jun and Odin Thiago Holm have all given flashes of the players they may become it’s fair to say they’re not yet ready to produce week in, week out at the top level.

With £72M sitting in the bank account - with this season’s Champions League proceeds yet to be added – it beggars belief that the returning manager wasn’t provided with at least two or three players of proven quality.

The massacre at the Metropolitano aside, Celtic genuinely competed in our opening three games of the campaign.

However many of us have been left wondering what may have been had Rodgers been able to call upon some big hitters against Feyenoord, Lazio and Atletico.

While we still have an outside chance of qualification it already looks like the focus will be on our next European campaign – which will hopefully be in next season’s revamped Champions League.

If the club are to meet the aspirations of the manager, and of the supporters, then we must see a new approach to recruitment, a new approach mentally, and a new approach in terms of what we want to be as a club.

Then, and only then can we look to transfer our winning ways in Scotland to wins on the continent.