AS Sunday's opposition manager famously said: "Do I not like that!"

A week of immense promise started with victory against the Premiership Champions but eventually petered out as a thoroughly undeserved loss against their Scottish compatriots was followed by a horror of a match with Villa.

Still, it could have been far worse. Whereas we succumbed to the odd goal at Celtic Park our "main rivals" had just unluckily gone down by the odd goal in 11 at Blundell Park.

And the sheer quality of Thursday night's performance proved the team can perform under any circumstances.

The trip to Glasgow always promised to be a once in a lifetime experience and it didn't disappoint.

With my favourite Miller lager on offer at just £1.60 a pint I briefly entertained notions of emigrating North and commuting down to England for the games.

Glasgow City Centre was wonderful. The hundreds of Rovers fans crammed round what is reputedly the longest bar in the UK at the renowned Horseshoe Pub created a fantastic atmosphere and there was an excellent craic between the rival sets of supporters.

For 85 minutes of the match the fantasy lived on. Celtic Park is indeed a magnificent ampitheatre but the much vaunted atmosphere failed to materialise as Rovers dominated play.

Once the Celtic fans realised it wasn't going to be the usual four up after ten minutes job they were reduced to stunned silence as their team chased shadows.

For all our crisp passing though we largely failed to trouble a keeper the Celtic fans seem to regard as a liability. Then disaster struck.

The entire defence went AWOL at a set piece leaving the tie very much in the balance despite Celtic's apparent mediocrity.

It was like Middlesbrough revisited. I commented shortly before Celtic scored that 0-0 would be a bad result on the balance of play and that we really needed an away goal.

If they do manage to nick one at Ewood we will need three to win which won't be a foregone conclusion. If nothing else they were adept at chucking bodies in the way which are the sort of tactics we failed to overcome against Villa.

The less said about that game the better. We've been ineffective at Ewood this season against teams who have piled bodies behind the ball.

I feel the reason for this is we take too long to get the ball forward at times and so fail to stretch or get behind the opposition defence.

Very much a case of after the Lord Mayor's show our defence of the Worthington Cup starts tomorrow night. As a supporter and paying customer I hope the right balance is struck between resting players and putting out a strong enough side to get through the tie.

Whilst this competition is not high on our priorities, a win would surprisingly put us in the last 16 already and a return trip to Cardiff in the spring would certainly not go amiss!