John Collins believes that Celtic will have to produce their best performance of the season to see off Salzburg and reach the last 32 of the Europa League.
Anything less than full points is likely to result in a matchday six showdown away to Dinamo Zagreb with Collins anxious to get the job done at the next opportunity.
Before Celtic played Astra Ronny Deila raised eyebrows when he claimed that the Romanian’s would be sitting at the top of the SPFL with Collins in no doubt about the quality of Salzburg.
“Without a doubt, it will have to be our best performance of the season,” Collins stated about what’s required to succeed tomorrow night. “If we don’t play well, we won’t get a result.
“It won’t be like the SPFL where we can be average and still win. That’s the reality, with no disrespect meant to the other teams in the SPFL but against this calibre of opposition, everybody in our team will have to be at it on Thursday.
“Salzburg are a very good team. They’re probably the best pressing team in Europe. They don’t give you a minute on the ball, so it’s going to be completely different to what we’re used to in the Scottish Premiership, where teams sit off us. They just keep pressing you so our players will have to be on their toes and move the ball quickly.
“They play with a real intensity and lots of energy and pace. They’re a really fit team who obviously do a lot of good work on the training pitch. That’s where performances come from. They’ve a new coach this season, but it’s the same principles. They’ve got the potential to be in the latter stages of the Europa League.
“They don’t have ‘great’ names as individual players but they are a team. Everyone knows their jobs and they work hard together from the first minute to the last. They hunt in packs.
“If you dwell on the ball against teams like Salzburg, they’ll take it off you in dangerous positions. The home game against them might be even harder than the away game because of their pressing qualities. They’ll come here flying high. They’ve won every game fairly convincingly since the 2-2 against us. People said we ‘only’ got a draw over there but we knew they were a good team.
“It should be a great game for us and that’s what we want, to learn and develop and keep stretching ourselves. We know we’re going to have to have a top performance to get a result. An average performance won’t get a result.”
Dinamo Zagreb travel to Astra having missed out on a match at the weekend after Hadjuk Split refused to play them after 50 fans were banned from the match. The Croatian FA awarded Dinamo Zagreb a 3-0 win.
