There is always something special about the European nights under the floodlights at Celtic Park.

Some of the most special nights of my career were in the European arena for Celtic with the game against Liverpool in the run-up to the UEFA Cup final particularly memorable.

I think Henrik Larsson had just come back into the team after breaking his jaw and scored the opener for us before Emile Heskey levelled it for Liverpool. We all know what happened when we went to Anfield for the return leg.

But the atmosphere that night was electric, as it was the night we played Anderlecht and Liam Miller, God rest his soul, played out of his skin. I remember knocking the ball down for him to volley it into the night and the roof was ready to come off the stadium.

As Group B stands now in the Europa League, this is a game that Celtic need to win on Thursday night.

If Celtic are ever going to make it to the knockout stages and get a big result in the tournament then it is going to come at Celtic Park with the crowd behind them.

They will need that this week if they are to entertain any ambitions of overcoming Leipzig and peg them back in the table.

But I have found it interesting to listen to Brendan Rodgers talk about the tournament recently. I think we can all see that Celtic have found their swagger again in a domestic context but I think he is content at the minute to focus on the domestic front. 

Everyone is desperate to get to ten-in-a-row and as such the title will always be paramount for Celtic given how close they are to that. I actually believe that right now ten-in-a-row is more important to the Celtic support. They might never be in this position again. 

Leipzig are a team who have had significant financial investment in them by Red Bull and I just get the feeling that Brendan is making the point that he wasn’t given the money to go and get the players this summer that he believes are necessary to get to this level.

Not that it will detract from Celtic going out and giving it a right good go on Thursday night.