Lets have a look at the squad then. They have one regular international player in Mika Vayryen who only signed a three month contract before the game against KR Reykjavik.
A few other players have a couple of caps, Demba Savage looks like he has broke into the Gambia national team but with 6 caps this makes him the second most experienced international Helsinki have.
PAUL MORGAN concludes his three part look at HJK Helsinki
So Finnish football is as high a level as this team are used to playing. There are two ex SPL players in the squad, striker Juho Makela played 25 times for Hearts between 2006-09 and Sebastian Sorsa had two appearances for Hamilton in 2008.
This will be their probable lineup.
Wallen
Sorsa Lahti Hakannpaa Sumusalo
Savage Väyrynen Schuller Mannstrom
Makela Pohjanpalo
The centre backs might change as well as the right back but I think this will be close to the actual team we will see on Wednesday night. Formation will be a standard 4-4-2 and depending on how attacking they are going to be they might switch Mannstrom and Savage.
Who is the danger man? Honestly, I have watched two full games as well as extended highlights of their last 5 league games. There is no one the really stands out. At a stretch I would say Joel Pohjanpalo. This kid has potential, a little bit raw but he scores goals. The thing is, he is only 17 years old. I can’t see him taking the game by the scruff of the neck and winning it by himself. I actually think he will be fairly anonymous in the first leg, so they will have to rely on someone from the midfield. Most obvious candidate would be Vayrynen, but he was substituted after they went a goal down to Honka at the weekend.
So that leaves Demba Savage. Savage is a pacy winger who can create a goal if given a bit of time but he is not as good as some of the other wingers we have faced under Lennon. Mertens(FC Utrecht), Sio(FC Sion) and Pitroipa(Stade Rennes) are all more talented than Savage. If we get caught out again by a direct running speedy winger it will be a major oversight by our management.
Annti Muurinen is the current HJK manager. He has won six Finnish Titles with 2 different clubs and also coached the National team from 2000-05. He was in charge of HJK when they reached the Champions League group stages. Here is what he and Assistant Coach Juho Rantala had to say in regards to the upcoming games.
“It is also worth remembering that the domestic season has not yet started in Scotland and that will probably be a small advantage for us,” Muurinen said.
Assistant Juho Rantala thinks his side can benefit from being ‘huge underdogs’. He said: “We want to win – they have to win. Of course there is pressure on us, but not like Celtic. It will be a disaster for Celtic if they don’t win.
“The Champions League is huge for them, so they will be anxious.
“Some of their best players earn nearly as much in a week as some of our players get basic in a year, but it’s lucky that it’s not all about the money.
“It might be a good thing they haven’t started their season yet. We have played 17 games and are in the middle of our league season.”
After watching HJK win 2-1 away to KR Lennon said: “Hopefully by Sunday we will have seen all their players in action. I don’t want to give too much away, but on tonight’s evidence there are maybe some things we can work on and exploit.
“The main thing is they are 18 games into their season and we are still in pre-season so we have to be wary of that.”
Who do you think sounds more confident? Both managers talk about HJK being half way through their season which is the only X variable in the tie but Lennon has identified something we can work on.
You can tell a lot from the few snippets a manager gives the press before a game and the Finnish sound more hopeful than anything else. They are not even using any of the cliches, 11v11, its a cup game etc. It would not inspire me much if I was an HJK fan.
I am normally a bit pessimistic when it comes to Celtic playing in Europe. Long gone are the days when we can just expect a win but I cannot see anywhere that there is a red flag in this tie, no mismatches for them to cause us trouble.
Watching them against Honka last weekend there was no sense of urgency about them. Movement from the strikers was non existent and when they went a goal down the game was over.
In the game against Haka the week before they created a few chances but their goal came from a hoof by their keeper, some horrible defending and a decent finish. Our defence is bad but they won’t concede a goal like that. HJK have also only scored 28 goals in 19 league games, that’s 1.47 goals a game.
Compare that to last year when they won the league, 86 goals in 33 games at 2.60 goals a game. Not good enough for a team wanting to win a league. The Reykjavik game aside, they don’t score goals.
We see this standard of football every week, they are no better than St Johnstone or Kilmarnock. They will park the bus or maybe because they are used to being the better team in their league they won’t and it will cost them. If we score early against them on Wednesday I think we could kill the tie in the first leg.
There is no excuses for us anymore, we have a settled team that has played with each other for two years now. No new players to settle in and we better be fit enough or management has a lot to answer for.
With no Glasgow derby games and no competition for the league this is our most important game of the season. Win this tie we are guaranteed European football till Christmas, lose and Neil will have to seriously think about his future with club. I can’t see us lose though.
I will leave you with this stat. In the Association Rankings Finland is ranked 30th, the Republic of Ireland is ranked 31st. Would you fear playing Shamrock Roverr?
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Don’t know where you get your information, but in the UEFA country coefficients Scotland is currently 28th while Finland is 31st. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_coefficient)
Certainly Celtic will at this point know HJK’s weaknesses. But if would be foolish to think that HJK doesn’t know their own weaknesses (the biggest two in my opinion being goalkeeping and the right-back position). In such a vast underdog position HJK is able to adapt and offer support to the problematic areas.
I have to disagree with Joel Pohjanpalo. They guy, despite his young age, is a big threat. He is a natural born goalscorer, who is able to score goals from VERY difficult positions. Lately he’s been a bit under the weather, but today he will be on fire.
For all that I know, HJK would be a solid top 5 team in the Scottish Premier League, even strongly fighting for the Europa League positions. Celtic loses every season several times to teams in the Scottish Prem, that are weaker than HJK. And NONE of these teams have such an amazingly strong home advantage than HJK.
Celtic needs to win today’s game by 3 goals in order to feel comfortable in the away game. This is possible, as poor defending has been HJK’s issue this season after selling two key defenders (full-back Rafinha to Gent and center-back Juhani Ojala to Young Boys). Celtic hasn’t been scoring much goals in the pre-season, which is promising for HJK. If they can keep today’s numbers in 0,1,2-0,1, they’ll have amazing chances to send Celtic out next week in Helsinki in front of an already sold-out stadium.
A good, informative article. One thing I might add is that at only 17 no one really knows pohjanpalo’s potential, and this is the best possible stage to show his talents to the attentive scouts from united and arsenal looking at Wanyama. I expect pohjanpalo will be absolutely trying his guts out trying to impress them.
Hi Keifer,
Don’t exactly know what co efficient rankings you found. I was using the Champions League Associations Rankings on the Champions League page. Scotland is still 15th and that is why we get 2 teams in the Champions league and one automatically into this round.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%9313_UEFA_Champions_League
Scroll down to Associations Rankings.
Am I saying we will absolutely win this? This is our best chance of a win. Out of HJK, SC Braga, FC Utrecht, FC Sion, Stade Rennes, Udinese and Atletico Madrid I would say HJK would be our easiest opponents.
Pohjanpalo is a good player. He scored a hat trick on his debut. Since then there has only been 3 league goals in 16 games. He did score twice against Reykjavik, but it is not prolific enough. Last year we had to figure out how to deal with Antonio Di Natale and Radamel Falcao we should be prepared for Pohjanpalo. I just can’t see him winning the game by himself.
HJK would easily challenge for Europa places in the Scottish League. I would not be even a little surprised if they finished second now Rangers are gone. We beat all the other teams though and are expected to beat them every time we play them.
I think if this tie was last year and we were still figuring out our team and HJK had the same squad that pushed Schalke, it would be a different story. We have pretty much the exact same team for two full years. They know what its about now, no surprises. I’ll be very disappointed if we lose.