Christopher Jullien unsure who he wants in next Europa League round

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Celtic defender Christopher Jullien admits he’s a little uncertain over what draw would be best for the club in the last 32 of the Europa League.

Neil Lennon’s men have already secured qualification from Group E – with two games to spare – and all that remains to be settled now is if they will do so as group winners. Three points against Rennes tomorrow night, coupled with a Cluj defeat against Lazio, would secure the feat.

That would mean a tie against an ‘unseeded’ side in February, with the second leg in Glasgow. But Jullien has placed less emphasis on the draw as he revealed he has a little bit of an inner dilemma.

“If we want to go far in this competition we’ll have to beat some great teams for sure,” he told the Celtic View. (volume 55, issue 21, page 13)

“Part of me thinks it will be great to be drawn against a big team and part of me thinks we would like to avoid some of the better teams. There’s not much of a difference at this level, though, so we know every team is capable of hurting us if we aren’t focussed and motivated.

“After the group stages every team is a big team so it doesn’t matter too much who we get. That is so far away still and we have two games left in this group that we want to win.”

Jullien may not be aware of our 15 year European wait

Jullien makes a fair claim about our need to face a big team at some stage if we’re aiming to make it to the latter stages of the competition. But many Celtic fans will be happy just to see the club progress past one knockout round this season.

It’s been 15 years since we last won a two-legged tie post-Christmas after all. As David Marshall and John Kennedy took the acclaim in the Nou Camp in 2004, following an immense 1-0 aggregate win over Barcelona, few would have believed that such a bad knockout run would follow.

Yes we’ve only played seven ties in the following decade-and-a-half, and they have come against the likes of Barcelona, Juventus and Inter Milan. But there is still a feeling that the club haven’t quite done themselves justice in the latter rounds of European competition.

Winning the group would give Lennon’s men a good shot at ending that run, especially with the second leg at home. If we can get that monkey off our back it could set us up for another immense journey through the rounds.