CELTIC crashed out of the Champions League on Tuesday night with the club shipping four goals to their opponents – only the third time the club has shipped four or more on the European stage at Celtic Park in their history.

Quite a sobering thought.

However, as we pick over the bones of what might have been, there is greater danger ahead for Neil Lennon and Celtic.

Celtic now fall back into the Europa League group play-off round and if you weren’t paying attention – Celtic were handed one of the toughest draws of the round.

AIK or Sheriff will take on Celtic for a place in the group stage of the competition and with AIK already up 2-1 from the first leg – they’re expected to go through on Thursday night.

Arguably, AIK are a more difficult proposition than Cluj. The Swedes are flying high in their domestic league and only a point off the top more than halfway through their season.

While Champions League football has gone, if we don’t get our act together, there’s a possibility we may be out of Europe altogether before the end of August this year.

Neil Lennon spoke about needing to sell before bringing more players in, now with the carrot of Champions League money not sitting there and the KT money banked – there’s unlikely to be major improvements to the squad.

A dangerous game awaits in the Europa. We must not approach it like the Cluj game, it was criminal.