Nobody will want to draw Celtic in the Europa League

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It’s crazy the difference a few months can make. When the draw for the Europa League playoff paired Celtic with AIK in August, the Swedes were probably pretty chuffed.

They would have viewed us as a fallen giant. A team that used to be pretty handy in Europe, but no more. We were a side that held little fear for them.

Fast forward just three short months and we are now a team to be feared in Europe’s secondary competition. I’m not going to insult your intelligence and pretend we’re one of the most fearsome sides in Europe altogether. We’re not quite as daunting a proposition as a Bayern Munich or a Liverpool. But in the Europa League we’re right up there, and I mean that.

Lennon is building a Celtic team to be feared

Many around Europe will have looked on impressed as we qualified from a group containing the Romanian league champions and the cup winners from both France and Italy, with two games to spare.

Topping the group hasn’t been too much of an ordeal for Neil Lennon’s men either, and notes will have been taken around the continent.

Other than Sevilla and perhaps the likes of Manchester United and Arsenal, we will be viewed as one of the nightmare propositions in next month’s draw. For so long Celtic Park was where the real fear lay for our European opponents. Now it’s both the stadium and the team itself.

Lennon is building one of the great Celtic teams in recent memory. We haven’t enjoyed a European campaign like this since his glorious Barcelona-beating side of 2012/2013. This current team is arguably better player for player, and is managed by a more experienced and mature head.

Lennon won’t get ahead of himself and he won’t allow the team to either. We will take each round as it comes and hope to show what we’re all about when the time arrives.

But things are mightily good at Celtic Park right now. If you’d have even mentioned the word Gdansk as we prepared to face AIK, you’d have got many smirks from even the most ardent of Hoops supporters. Now not so many people are laughing. It’s starting to enter the conversation in a genuine sense.