Certainly fans who have been religiously following football, especially UEFA Champions League football, would simply yawn upon looking at the checklist above. At a glance, they might assume that this is another discussion about another of those dead-rubber matches between Manchester United and Celtic in Champions League group stage encounters in which Manchester United have firmly clinched their spot to the knockout stage of the competition while Celtic is firmly rooted to the bottom of the table without any chances whatsoever to even clinch 3rd place in the group and being demoted to the UEFA Cup. Apologies to the fans who feel offended by this paragraph.
However, this time, the Battle of Britain doesn't involve Manchester United and the stakes are much higher than the previous Battle of Britain matches witnessed by the fans. This is Celtic vs Arsenal, UEFA Champions League play-off round first leg in Parkhead, Glasgow in which the winners of this 2 legged qualifier would clinch a place in this season's edition of the UEFA Champions League and thus bagging a few wads of cash in the process.
Both teams come into this match with sheer optimism. First and foremost, all of us know that in the build-up of this encounter, Arsenal shamed a usually sturdy Everton team in front of their own fans in Goodison Park with a rather obscene scoreline (especially true for Evertoonians) of 6-1, no less. Thus, morale of Arsenal's dressing room is certainly sky-high prior to this.
Celtic's morale is more or less quite high as well. Besides the heroic triumph of Dynamo Moscow in the cold and hostile Russia to snatch an unlikely 2-1 aggregate victory to keep their European hopes alive and book their dates with Arsenal's boys, they also have reently clinched a solid 3-1 victory over Aberdeen in Pittodrie, which is Aberdeen's home stadium.
Well, personally I don't really know why that from the matches of this season so far, I could see that teams are rather homesick, many home teams falter badly in front of their own fans and so away teams usually triumph in hostile stadiums (Just like Celtic's performances in the 2 legs against Dynamo Moscow). I will come back to this argument at the end, as based on the result of today's match, it might be about to happen again (sorry Gooners...)
In this match, Celtic was thoroughly being outplayed by the usual brand of Arsenal's carpet football, which I personally dub as "Pinball Football". I particularly like Andrey Arshavin's performance in this match. He was everywhere on the pitch and was always at the epicenter of any of Arsenal's offensive moves. In short, I would describe his performance as similar to a 100% Juan Roman Riquelme (plus a few notches of pace).
Throughtout the match, Arsenal basically pressed the Scottish side to the limit, it was as if Arsenal was playing in their homeground. But narrow misses were common from van Persie and the rest of Arsenal's firepower.
In 43th minute, Arsenal broke the deadlock through their surprisingly prolific William Gallas (maybe the number 10 on his shirt influences his knack of scoring many goals) albeit with a little fluke. In my opinion, this goal substantiated my claim that Arsenal's play was just like a pinball game. The move started when Arsenal got a free kick around 35 meters from the goal. van Persie would flick the ball a little to Fabregas before the captain dipped a shot on goal, but on the way to goal, the ball struck the back of William Gallas and as a result of the wicked deflection, Artur Boruc (Celtic's GK) dived to the wrong direction and the ball simply whistled to the net beautifully. 1-0 to Arsenal.
The second half was pretty much the same as the first one, with Arsenal playing their "pinball" with Arshavin pulling the strings and distributing the ammunition to van Persie, but the Dutchman kept on missing very slightly to extend Arsenal's lead.
However, in the 71st minute, Arsenal extended their lead when another of the pinball movement occurred, and Gael Clichy launched a searching cross from the left flank and Gary Caldwell, one of the Celtic players tried to clear it away but in the end he made himself look like an Arsenal striker as he simply directed it into his own goal! 2-0 for Arsenal and there was no way back for Celtic, as could be seen from the dejected Tony Mowbray, Celtic's manager.
Celtic tried to grab a goal late in the end, but again, they were so groggy as if they were an away team in the match and simply squandered the good counter.
The next leg would be played in Arsenal's Emirates Stadium with the Scottish side needing to climb a mountain of 2 away goals to clinch a place in the group stage of the Champions League. A tall task as they would have to win by 3 goals at least to really secure a safe passage to the group stage.
However, referring to my earlier mention about teams being homesick so far, I will never rule out the possibility of Arsenal being homesick as well (Note: We have yet to see Arsenal performing competitively in Emirates Stadium this season) and Arsenal would be left chasing for Europa League glory instead of the Champions League glory.
We shall see how it goes in the second leg of this tie, and I am certainly looking forward to it!
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