Eduardo's swan dive on Wednesday night deprived the viewing millions of the opportunity to find out just how much better Arsenal are than Celtic. Nobody who had seen the first leg in Glasgow would have held out much hope for Celtic as the Emirates fixture approached. Most would argue that you only need to look at the revenue columns and playing squads of both clubs to be able to predict a win for the London club. They are probably right.

Over the two legs, Celtic lost three goals in unfortunate circumstances and the other two were typical of Arsenal's capabilities. The 5-1 aggregate might have flattered Arsenal a little, but not a lot. No reasonably minded Hoops fan is complaining about ending up in the Europa League. Better sides that Celtic will get gubbed by Arsenal this season.

As a fan of the Hoops, however, there were two really big disappointments. First, we rarely looked like an attacking threat and rarely troubled Almunia home or away. Given the illustrius names that have visited Celtic Park and gone a way empty handed, the failure at home was especially tough to take.

Top European sides such as Juventus, Barcelona, Milan, Lyon, Man Utd each of which included stellar players like Del Piero, Maldini, Deco, Juninho and Ronaldo - have all been beaten at Celtic Park. Lesser names such as Valencia, Benfica, Anderlecht, Shakhtar Donetsk and Porto have also been vanquished over 90 or 120 minutes. Another batch including Bayern Munich and Liverpool have only managed to draw. Somehow the combination of crackling electricity and collective belief seemed to squeeze 10%-15% more out of every player on the big Euro nights. Not this year.

So you can understand why the green and white legions are irked not to at least land a punch in our own back yard and send the Gunners home with a bloody nose. Have we really gone that far backwards so quickly? Or are we just missing a couple of players with the quality to take us up a notch. I think the latter.

The other major disappointment is directly linked to the first. If we had gone to the Emirates at 1-0, 0-0 or even 0-1, who knows what might have happened, especially if we had scored first. The odds are we would ended up getting a drubbing, but you just never know. It's a funny old game. That's what is so annoying about the whole Eduardo escapade for me. He wasn't the first professional footballer to use the black arts to gain advantage and he won't be the last. I'm sure there will be sinners wearing Hoops too. I just feel cheated that we didn't get the game we all deserved - and by "we" I mean all football fans.

Now to my conspiracy theory. Take a look at the draw for the Group Stages. How can it be that Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool and Chelsea all end up in much easier Groups than their major rivals for the Champions League? It's particularly galling to consider Arsenal's group - AZ Alkmaar, Standard Liege and Olympiakos - hardly names to keep Mr Wenger awake at night - or even Mogga come to that. I wish.

Real Madrid, Barcelona, Inter, Bayern and Milan have all got much tougher assignments when you look at their Pot 2 & 3 opposition. The answer offered makes reference to a combination of seeding, making sure clubs from the same associations don't meet at the group stages and splitting games over two nights to ensure maximum TV coverage.

But surely it's all about cash - extracting the maximum wedge from TV broadcasters - and making sure this money gets channelled to the favoured clubs. The biggest spender on Champions League broadcasting rights (ie. Uefa's major customer) is Sky which, co-incindentally, bankrolls the English Premiership.

So it's in Sky's interest to have its big four EPL clubs in the latter stages of Uefa's prime competition and it's in Uefa's interest to keep Sky sweet. The fortunes of Uefa, Sky and the big four EPL clubs are interdependent. It's a sordid threesome - a symbiotic relationship fuelled by avarice and the protection of vested interests. In short, it's a fix, plain and simple. And Michel Platini has gradually become complicit in its murkiness rather than sorting it out as he promised. Tell me I'm wrong.

While I'm at it, TFOD have a pretty cushy draw too, but I think they were just lucky. Surely David Taylor can't be a bluenose? Shockerooony!