The Warm-Up: Brendan Rodgers, mission accomplished. That was wonderful.

You get the feeling that, even if he has latterly acquired the PR nous never to admit as such, Brendan Rodgers probably sees himself and Pep Guardiola as kindred spirits – and as equals.

Two thinkers. Two ideologues. Two geniuses.

It has probably been rather painful, then, for B-Rodge to see the Spaniard conquering hearts and minds in the Premier League, colonising the Northern Irishman’s rightful stomping ground as he seeks to rebuild his reputation north of the border, like Voldemort in repose.

On that reading, Wednesday night represented an unmissable opportunity for British football’s premier portrait enthusiast: the chance to bloody a few noses and remind the world of his existence.

Well, Brendan, mission accomplished. That was wonderful.

For 90 pulsating, harum-scarum minutes, a patchwork Celtic side (a Kolo Toure here, a Scott Sinclair there) matched Manchester City’s millionaire masses, taking the lead three times and eventually emerging with a draw that, while unlikely to help them progress from the group, at least thrusts a stick into Guardiola’s spokes.

They rode their luck at times, but then so did City, who simply could not cope with Moussa Dembele and were always playing catch-up. You got the sense that the two teams could have continued trading blows forever without breaking the pattern: Celtic-City-Celtic-City-Celtic-City. Welcome back to coverage of the 32nd year of the Great Unending Battle of Glasgow; if you’re just joining us, the score is 94,233-all.

“Nobody saw this result coming,” said Chris Sutton, but The Warm-Up bets Rodgers did. He’d been waiting months for this, lurking out of sight, consolidating, planning. “A magnificent performance,” he called it.

And you know what? He was right.

It won’t surprise you to know that The Warm-Up, as a fully trained journalist with comprehensive knowledge of media law, feels entirely comfortable constructing shimmering snark palaces from the rubble of what are, on the face of it, complex issues.

However, it has come to our attention that some of the lesser denizens of the internet struggle to demarcate world-class, legally-sound satire from material that is likely to result in terse emails from people with important job titles. Not The Warm-Up, of course. Lesser denizens.

Usually, we would go on ploughing our own furrow. But sometimes the public interest calls for the most agile ballroom dancers to make concessions to the head-bangers and the pogoers, and so it is with a knowing roll of the eyes that The Warm-Up brings you this brief round-up of the latest headlines from The Daily Telegraph‘s investigation into corruption in football.

The Telegraph alleges that:

An assistant manager took a £5,000 bung to help agents place players at his club

The manager of a high-profile Championship club asked for £55,000 to act for a sports firm that proposed selling players to his club

The owner of a prominent club in Yorkshire suggested ways of getting round ‘player purchase’ rules

All the clubs involved have now responded - and the Tweets above will point you to their statements.

This is intriguing, worrying stuff. The Warm-Up is just looking forward to when The Telegraph tell the world about [REDACTED BY LEGAL TEAM]. Not to mention [ALSO REDACTED].

Theo Walcott is in many ways the prototypical Arsenal player: nice, inoffensive, objectively good-looking, quick, flighty, prone to injury, deeply confused about his best position, fundamentally not as good as he should be by now.

He seems a decent sort, so it is with a fuzzy heart that The Warm-Up notes that the dial on his career-o-meter has once again swung around to ‘unstoppable winger’ on the back of a tidy brace against Basel at the Emirates.

Arsenal, inexplicably wearing their away kit, were slick all over the park but it was Walcott who took the game by the scruff of the neck, scoring a rare header before rattling home his second after clicking into fast-forward and sprinting past a cluster of regular-human-speed defenders.

That’s now four in three from the 27-year-old. More please.

September 1976 was a bit of a month for football. Ronaldo, Michael Ballack and Francesco Totti have all celebrated their 40th birthdays in the last week and we’re not yet done: today is Andriy Shevchenko’s big day.

Yes, he was a bit rubbish at Chelsea. Yes, he fluffed his lines against Liverpool in Istanbul. But for a spell, there was no deadlier striker in Europe. Here are some of his best bits from his (pre-HD) glory days:

If you find it odd that our hero is a goalkeeper who conceded twice and ended up on the losing side on Wednesday night, watch the highlights of Arsenal-Basel game. It could easily have been double figures were it not for the brilliance of the Czech stopper, who played like a man possessed.

He even – and The Warm-Up suggests you avoid trying this trick at home – made a save with his manhood, denying Alexis Sanchez late on at some personal cost. Tomas Vaclik, we salute you.

How do you replace Lionel Messi? The Warm-Up is no expert, but is prepared to go out on a limb and suggest that Paco Alcacer, who had a whopping five touches in his 53 minutes on the field for Barcelona against Borussia Monchengladbach, might need to work on his impression of the Argentine.

Playing in the Champions League can be something of a thankless task for sides outside of the top four or five European leagues. The money’s good, sure, but trying to frustrate the big boys is tough, especially when you’re used to steamrolling all comers domestically.

Michael Cox nicely sums up the dilemma facing the likes of Basel, Benfica and PSV Eindhoven in his latest piece for ESPN – and reveals why Jose Mourinho’s Porto side were the exception to the rule.

What’s bloated, seemingly endless and (almost) rhymes with ‘doper fatigue’? Yes, it’s the continent’s second-most-beloved club competition, back with another set of fixtures you just can’t quite bring yourself to care about.

Hapoel Be’er Sheva vs Southampton (6pm) could be worth a look, with the Israeli side looking to build upon a shock win over Internazionale last time out.

Manchester United vs Zorya (8.05pm), meanwhile, should provide Wayne Rooney with the perfect opportunity to prove that the bench really is the right place for him now.