Some days you're the hammer, other days the nail

Celtic return to SPL action today when they travel to Falkirk to face the Bairns but even though Eddie May's side are firmly rooted at the bottom of the table Gary Caldwell insists that the result can't be seen as a foregone conclusion. Celtic defied the odds on Thursday night when they drew 0-0 with Hamburg in a game that they could have won if the front men had taken their chances. Caldwell says that the team will still take a lot of positives from the Europa League Group C tie in the Nordbank Arena and he hopes it will stand them in good stead for the upcoming games against surprise package Hapoel Tel Aviv and old enemies Rapid Vienna.

"We have left ourselves with a lot to do because of the bad start to the Europa League campaign but anything is possible in football," said Caldwell. "I think we can take a lot of heart from the performance against Hamburg, there are obviously areas where we need to be better but we have to build on the performance. We created better chances on the night than they did although they were better than us on the ball and probably had more of the game."

"But if you miss chances it's going to cost you." he added. "However, we will keep working at it and now we have to put it behind us for Falkirk. We understand that playing in Europe is tough but we have to recover and come out again fighting on Sunday. We've done that over the last few years and we know what it takes but Falkirk will be a tough game. We are usually massive favourites in SPL games and we are always under pressure and that's what we have to live with at Celtic. We will respect Falkirk but I'm sure we will be ready for them."

German international defender Andreas Hinkel sees nothing unusual in moving swiftly from a huge European tie in front of 50,000 fans to the provincial setting of Falkirk's 8,000 capacity stadium for today's SPL clash. "It is always like that as a professional player," he said. "It doesn't matter if you play for Celtic, Hamburg or Stuttgart. If you play in the Champions League or the Europa League then the next game is usually against smaller sides but you have to handle it. It is not easy, it is not easy at all to win in the SPL. It will be a hard fight against Falkirk and we have to be concentrated again. But nothing else but a win will do for us."