Aston Villa v Celtic

Alan Pattullo at Villa Park following thrilling Champions League tie: Aston Villa 4 Celtic 2

Transcript

00:00This is Alan Patalo, football writer for the Scotsman newspaper outside Villa Park, following

00:08an epic night of Champions League football. Fans are still milling around on their way

00:15home looking for taxis and still talking about an epic, epic night where Celtic, I think

00:27there were fears that Celtic might endure a drubbing having lost two goals in the opening

00:35five minutes from Morgan Rodgers, very impressive striker. But they managed to settle themselves

00:43and came back into the game through Adam Ida with a double before half-time, 2-2, nicely

00:50poised and the Celtic fans have found their voice, that's for sure. Even teasing Prince

00:59William, the famous Aston Villa fan, who was here with a chance of walking in a Harry Wonderland

01:10and such taunts. Villa came out in the second half and flexed their muscles slightly, scored

01:22again through Ollie Watkins, missed a penalty from the same player in extraordinary fashion,

01:29he slipped as he was taking a kick at the Holt end. So the ball rebound off his standing

01:38leg and disappeared high over the bar. A let-off for Celtic, kept him in the game until the

01:45final moments when Rodgers completed an impressive hat-trick, the hat-trick he'd been hunting

01:51for for most of the game in the dying seconds, 4-2. What it means is Aston Villa qualified

02:00directly for the last 16, Celtic, as we always suspected might be the case, have a play-off

02:06and what a play-off. They play either Real Madrid or Bayern Munich. The draw will take

02:13place on Friday. This Champions League adventure continues for Celtic and it promises to be

02:24a particularly attractive assignment in the next round. I can't wait for that tie.

02:30I've filed my match report from tonight, it's on scotsman.com and I'll be filing some more

02:39reports tomorrow through the day and some reaction as well from Brendan Rodgers is on

02:46there, scotsman.com as well. Log in if you can and yeah, we can look forward to a really

02:56mouth-watering prospect of a knock-out round, play-off tie between Celtic and Bayern Munich

03:08or Real Madrid.