Soccer Football - Champions League Group Stage draw - Halic Congress Center, Istanbul, Turkey - August 25, 2022 General view of the Champions League Group Stage Draw REUTERS/Murad Sezer
To no real surprise Celtic’s Champions League tie with Shakhtar onetsk will go ahead in Warsaw as planned on Wednesday.
Since Thursday evening there has been speculation that some of next week’s fixtures could be postponed or moved to different venues but those reports seem wide of the mark.
All weekend UK football fixtures were postponed- including Celtic’s home match with Livingston- but normal service is set to resume in midweek.
Tonight The Sun reports:
THE Old Firm and Hearts look set to play their European ties as planned this week.
The SPFL called off weekend fixtures at every level following the Queen’s passing.
But it’s now expected Celtic, Rangers and Hearts will all return to action in the coming days.
Celtic can continue their preparations as normal for the match against Shakhtar which could be pivotal to their prospects of reaching the knock-out stage of the competition.
A 4-1 win away to RB Leipzig by the Ukrainian champions has opened the group right up with Marcus Rose taking over as manager of Leipzig.
If Shakhtar beat Celtic it would give them a six point cushion after two points but after their performance at home to Real Madrid Ange Postecoglou’s side will be confident of taking something from the match.
Looking at the Real game again. I am not an expert, but I’d say we were the better team in the fist half. That meant that they had to defend more in the first half. So, in the second half, we could have slowed the game down. A way to do this would have been to go wide more often.
I think we fell into the trap of becoming desperate to score a goal. It meant we were going through the middle all the time! With the score at 0-0, we should have been going wide, down to the the line and turning their defenders with crosses from the bye- line.
Just like we did against Dundee Utd. and Them! It is basic but it would have kept them at bay while we were on the front foot and slowed the game down.
They just lapped the pressure up because they are good players and they sensed we were a bit desperate to score! Then they just pressed us and took their chances.
Ruthless, yes. But we were naive in that resect! You live and learn!
6 point cushion after 2 games Joe,whit school did you go tae?