Thursday's night Europa League action went very much to plan as Scotland 3 representatives had mixed bag of results. Can i also add that i was very close to predicting all 3 results , my betting so far for this blog has been very good.
Starting with Motherwell and their trip to Denmark to face Odense BK. OHHHH how angry was i watching this game on the internet??. Odense were their for the taking. Motherwell played very well and i couldn't believe the score stood at 2-0 before Tom Hateley's excellent free kick made it 2-1 and gave Motherwell the vital away goal. The Danish defence were all over the place and i agree with "well" manager Craig Brown that Motherwell deserved at least a draw. Only bad finishing kept the Fir park side from getting an even better result. For the return leg Motherwell should attack this team , yes they are decent going forward but their defence is awful , i expect "well" to score maybe up to 3 goals (that's how bad odense defence was) and hopefully they can limit the Danish runners up to 1 goal in return. Motherwell in the Europa League Group Stages eh , well it looks like it will happen , what an achievement for Craig Brown and his team.
Next to celtic who showed their class and dominance to beat Dutch outfit Utrecht 2-0. After a slow start just like the Inverness game , Celtic began to play and it was Mexican Internationalist Efrain Juarez who opened the scoring in 19 minutes. Georgios Samaras then added a second on 34 minutes as Celtic began to cruise in this tie. After the break Celtic seemed content to sit back and hit on the break as Utrecht didn't have the quality to break Celtic and impressive debutant Daniel Majstorovic down. The 2-0 win sets Neil Lennon's side up for the return game very nicely , Celtic know 1 away goal and its all over. I expect Celtic to do this no problem as the gulf from being a top Scottish club to a mid table Dutch club is huge. If and when Celtic go through then they will be in pot 2 of the seeds so hopefully this will give them a good chance of progressing to the knock-out stages.
Lastly to Tannadice where Dundee Utd were given a lesson in European football by AEK Athens. The Greek side ran out 1-0 winners in a game where Utd had very few chances. Rafik Djebbour got the only goal of the game in 11 minutes as Utd struggled against a team who kept the ball better than them. What Utd would have gained is experience , especially the younger players who many were playing in their first European tie. Peter Houston will be looking for a miracle in the 2nd leg as Utd travel to the hostile Athens. Houston knows that Utd MUST get the first goal across there if his team is to have any chance of pulling this off. One chink of light is that AEK might take their eye off the ball as they start their league campaign 4 days after the Utd game but the smart money is AEK to repeat what they did lat night. Another tough night in store for the Arabs then.
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