Stjarnan’s miserable league season continued yesterday with a 1-1 home draw against IA Akranes.
Runar Pall Sigmundsson’s side have won just four of their twelve domestic matches and haven’t won any of their last four home matches.
The tail of woe continued yesterday when 10 man Akranes equalised in the 76rd minute through Gardar Gunnlaugsson despite being down to ten men following a red card for goalkeeper Albert Hafsteinsson 13 minutes earlier.
Olafur Finsen had put Stjarnan in front shortly before half time but Gunnlaugsson’s equaliser leaves last season’s champions in sixth place eight points behind leaders FH having played a game more.
In contrast Celtic prepared for Wednesday’s trip to Iceland with an impressive 4-1 win away to SD Eibar in northern Spain.
Leigh Griffiths, a substitute in the 2-0 home win over Stjarnan, scored a second half hat-trick and seems certain to lead the line as Celtic look to ease their way into the third qualifying round of the Champions League.
“He got three goals and an assist here, so you can’t ask for much more,” Ronny Deila said about Griffiths. “You shouldn’t need competition to raise your game but sometimes it helps.
“We want to get the best out of Leigh. He works hard now and he’ll be better than he was last year. I’m sure of that.”
Deila added: “They had good physical players but we were physical too. It was good. We wanted to use this game as a good pre-season match.
“There was only Broony, Leigh, Virgil and the keeper who played the whole 90 minutes.”
Virgil van Dijk will be available for Wednesday’s return leg after missing the home tie through suspension.
