One of the highlights of the season so far has been Celtic’s away record under Neil Lennon.
If there’s one thing Lenny knows outside of how to win Premiership titles, it’s how to take this Celtic side to tough venues in Europe and do a job.
So far this season, Celtic have played eight European away matches. Only one of them has ended in defeat. Even that one – against Cluj in December – came when Celtic played a shadow side after already topping their Europa League group.
Celtic have left Sarajevo, Nomme Kalju, Cluj, AIK, Rennes, Lazio, and Copenhagen without losing this season. Four of those matches have seen us come away victorious too. The notable highlight victories came in AIK and Lazio. The others against Sarajevo and Nomme Kalju.
Quite incredibly, those four European victories that Lennon managed actually took Rodgers three campaigns to achieve. Rodgers took charge of 21 European trips during his time at Parkhead. He only managed to win a grand total of five. His fourth came in a 3-0 Champions League qualifying win in Alashkert in July 2018.
Away day success hasn’t been so frequent in previous years
That Alashkert win came in his 14th away match as Celtic manager in Europe. Lennon secured his fourth in Lazio in only his sixth away match. Therefore, it took Rodgers eight more trips to get to the same number, and he needed a third campaign to do it.
If Lennon manages to beat Copenhagen and reach the last-16, he’ll get another shot at another Euro trip. Another away-day win and he’ll reach the entire total of away wins that Rodgers achieved during his three Euro campaigns in Glasgow.
Granted, Rodgers initially had trips against the likes of Man City and Barcelona during his time here. But he also had games against Lincoln Red Imps, Astana (x2), Hapoel Be’er Sheva, Borussia Monchengladbach, Suduva, and AEK Athens which came and went without victories.
That’s no real slight on Rodgers though. Winning away from home in Europe is an incredibly difficult thing to do. That’s been proven in the past under Ronny Deila, Tony Mowbray, and Gordon Strachan. Even Martin O’Neill had the odd blip. Strachan didn’t win a single one of 13 away games – losing 12 of them.
It’s just another sign of some of the great work that’s been done this season. The idea that we could have potentially the same number of away wins in one year than our entire previous three beforehand is incredible.
Massive credit to Lennon for this. One defeat in eight, and that one defeat may not have happened if there was something to play for. Brilliant stuff.
How do you view our away days in Europe this season? Have we improved to a substantial degree on our travels this season? Or do you perhaps even think we’ve had some lucky draws in there? As always, let us know in our discussion forum below.
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