Kris Boyd is hurting badly.
Not for the utter failure of his beloved Sevco but more at the success of Celtic.
On Thursday night Sky Sports invited the Kilmarnock striker to Firhill to cast his expert eye over the champions as they demolished Partick Thistle 5-0.
The result, the performance, the passion of the fans would excite most football people but for some the last 12 months have been a living nightmare.
Failure of #goingfor55 has hit them hard. All the aspirations hatched on the back of a penalty shoot out win at Hampden last April have died a death.
A forty point deficit to Celtic is entirely possible over a 38 match fixture list.
Rather than look for solutions, because they know Pedro Caixinha doesn’t offer any, Boyd and others are hoping that Celtic fail in Europe. After all Lincoln Red Imps and Barcelona gave them their biggest thrills of this season.
Being competitive in the group phase of the Champions League is the extent of most Celtic fans ambitions.
Finishing second or more realistically third and dropping into the Europa League will be viewed as a success for most Celtic fans.
In an attempt to provide some comfort for others Boyd feels that Celtic supporters are expecting a sustained run in the Champions League next season and is bracing them for disappointment!
“The problem Rodgers has now is that some Celtic fans have got it into their heads they’re a top-class team capable of doing great things in the Champions League next season,” Boyd claims in The Sun.
“Their supporters look at the way they knock the ball around against the likes of Thistle and it’s almost as if they think it’s on a par with the way Barcelona and Real Madrid play but Europe’s big clubs are still a million miles ahead of them.
“Celtic do brilliantly to get 60,000 into their stadium every week but that’s the be-all and end-all.
“Competing with the big guns abroad is still impossible. They don’t have the money to pay the kind of wages required to bring success at the highest level.”
No Celtic fan has any expectation of reaching the last eight in the Champions League- those clubs are already known- Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Paris St Germain plus a couple of others from Germany, France and England.
Celtic supporters expect to see the team improve in Europe and hopefully avoid Barcelona in the group phase.
Meanwhile Boyd would feel better to warn Sevco fans of the failings of their team, the nonentity that they have as a manager and the lack of investment and trail of broken promises from the boardroom.
In 17 years as a professional footballer Boyd has scored one goal against Celtic.
