Celtic’s media guy Tony Hamilton has tweeted this:
Gary Hooper will miss #Celtic v FC Sion. He has a sprained ankle and could potentially be out for a few weeks. Cheers.
Blow for Thursday. Stokes has always been at his best playing with Hooper and Samaras and Stokes have rarely linked well together. Also option to play Maloney or Commons in a more advanced role off Stokes.
I’d prefer Samaras up front for Thursday, believe Stokes will play better with someone who can offer a physical presence to work off.
Will the game be televised Thursday? Was hoping 3e might pick it up but it doesn’t seem to be among their listings.
It’s not being televised at all Totti as far as I know. They want a full house. Whether they’ll sell it to Swiss tv (and we get streaming) or not is a different matter.
Channel67 not even picking this one up?
I don’t know Totti. Can’t see it mentioned anywhere but they’re making a big deal of it not being on tv. It’s a free game on the season ticket anyway so it’s not about revenue in fairness.
Been meaning to fire a mail off to Celtic anyway. No idea why they continue to restrict Irish supporters from paying for their streams. A choice between a trip to Celtic Park or a matchday stream isn’t really an issue. It’s not as though there aren’t streams widely available but I’d gladly pay €5 a month or whatever for a guaranteed uninterrupted stream. There’s nothing excluding Irish subscribers from the terms and conditions of other clubs like Aberdeen or the huns so not sure why it applies to Celtic.
Created a new topic for this.
Lots of confusion over who Sion will have available for this game.
They were banned from making new signings until the end of this year but they argued it was until the end of last season and so signed 6 players. They were banned by the Swiss FA (upholding the FIFA ruling) but the players took a civil case and they have been allowed to play in Swiss league so 3 of them featured at the weekend.
Not sure whether some or any will be allowed to feature against Celtic. There’s some rumours about possible bans for Swiss clubs if they do play but that appears totally unfounded.
Audio only at this stage.
Squad list here http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/season=2012/clubs/club=50050/squad/index.html
No sign of Forster on it, so guess he’s not going to be involved for Sion should we sign him. Forgot how young our squad was as well. Only Majstorovic and Cha are over 30 and Maloney is the next oldest outfield player at 28.
Also noticed Daryl Muphy is not listed, along with Hooiveld and Rasmussen. A sign that we are looking to move him on? We only have two fit strikers in the squad for tonight - Stokes and Samaras. Would have left someone like Cha out and included Murphy given our lack of numbers there.
We can make one addition to that squad list by 11pm Celtic Park time this evening Totti but it has to be a new signing as far as I know, i.e. Forster.
Channel 67 are showing the game tomorrow night. 
From the Celtic site:
CELTIC’S European dreams are at stake in tomorrow night’s UEFA Europa League play-off and you can watch exclusive LIVE coverage of the match against FC Sion ONLY on Channel 67 – even if you are in the UK or Ireland.
The club’s official online channel is the only place that supporters can watch the game against FC Sion live tomorrow night (Thursday, August 18), with Channel 67 broadcasting live pictures for all our subscribers around the world.
If you’re not going to the match at Celtic Park, this means that Channel 67 will be the only place you can watch it LIVE – with our pre-match build-up beginning half an hour before the 8.05pm kick-off.
Presenter Gregor Kyle will be reading pre-match emails sent to comments@celticfc.com and we’ll also be showing classic European action, as well as an exclusive interview with Daniel Majstorovic in the build-up to the match.
Bad news for Bandage who had planned on shopping tomorrow night:
[indent=1]CELTIC’S European dreams are at stake in tomorrow night’s UEFA Europa League play-off and you can watch exclusive LIVE coverage of the match against FC Sion ONLY on Channel 67 – even if you are in the UK or Ireland.[/indent] [indent=1]The club’s official online channel is the only place that supporters can watch the game against FC Sion live tomorrow night (Thursday, August 18), with Channel 67 broadcasting live pictures for all our subscribers around the world.[/indent] [indent=1]If you’re not going to the match at Celtic Park, this means that Channel 67 will be the only place you can watch it LIVE – with our pre-match build-up beginning half an hour before the 8.05pm kick-off.[/indent] [indent=1]Presenter Gregor Kyle will be reading pre-match emails sent to comments@celticfc.com and we’ll also be showing classic European action, as well as an exclusive interview with Daniel Majstorovic in the build-up to the match.[/indent]
Beat me to it.
Subscription required but you can subscribe for a month and enjoy audio of our SPL games.
There’ll probably be streams available though too, yeah?
The availability of a C67 feed should make streams available but I’m tempted by the premium stream for the nigh that’s in it.
Is Kayal out for tonight lads?
I’d like to see the following line-up:
[indent=1]Forster; M. Wilson, Majstorovic, K. Wilson, Mulgrew; Brown, Ki, Ledley, Common; Samaras, Stokes.
[/indent][indent=1]Subs: Zaluska, Maloney, McCourt, Wanyama, Matthews, Forrest, Twardzik.
Really excited and passionate about the return of Celtic in Europe tonight. I’m hopeful that Dublin’s Anthony Stokes can keep his scoring streak up and we have a clean sheet to show for Forster’s season debut.
I envisage match streams being very hard to get tonight due to the commercial wankers trying to cash in on C67 sole broadcasting of tonight’s big game.
I’d also like extend my best wishes to our other Irish representatives, Shamrock Rovers, tonight.[/indent]
I think Samaras for the injured Hooper is a nailed on change and the only other decision to be made is Forster or Zaluska. I’d tend to go with Fraser as I don’t trust Zaluska at all. Looking forward to this one too.
Here’s my insight:
This is a very big game for Celtic.
I cannot fucking wait for this game.
I have paid up for my official stream so won’t be providing much assistance in the stream search but I’ll have a look in the usual places for what’s available.
I expect Forster to come in and Samaras will surely start also. Maloney and Forrest will probably both appear at some stage, particularly if the game is tight.
With TFK having received a walkover tonight, I am also planning on purchasing some beer on the way home from work and I plan to imbibe a few bottles during tonight’s encounter.
Rocko, please post some old Celtic classics. These European game threads used to be adorned with splendid ditties like ‘The East End of Town’ and so on.