Champions League Kairat Almaty v Celtic Tuesday August 26th kick off 5:45 Amazon Prime Video

Got 4-0 to us written all over it.

 

No that Paul John * said it was they play on grass

 

Rodgers pointed it out and I had forgot all about it we drew with rosenborg at home same type of game as last Wednesday and we went over their and won


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Come on, let’s get right after these. They are not a patch on what we played last year and yes we have big gaps but let’s get this over the line!

 

It's in fact a hybrid pitch.

 

I would go 4-2-3-1 for this game.
Keep it tight for the first half hour, weather the storm, then hit them hard on the break.

Schmeichel
Ralston CCV Scales Tierney
Bernardo McGregor
Nygren Hatate Maeda
Yamada

 

Are you nervous now?

 

Not at all.

But I think this mob will play for penalties again, like they did with Slovan Bratislava.

 

Think we'll win 2 or 3-0 to be honest. They were *.

 

One thing that really struck me in reviewing this game is that the Kairat manager clearly did his homework on Celtic ahead of the first game, and in particular applied some tactics that has been successful in the past.

Case in point, Aleksandr Mrynskiy has featured at both RB and RM, and mostly from the bench, in the more forward deployment and to use his speed. In the game last week, Urazbakhtin had him play at RB, not really as concerned about getting forward, but to contend with Maeda's pace on the left. And it worked.

It is literally what Stephen Robinson did when he set St M up in the first game of the season, having Jayden Richardson, who is normally a RM and one of his main strengths is his speed, play out of position at RB so to counter Maeda's speed. And it worked, with Maeda unable to make a telling contribution until after Richardson was replaced, when McCowan scored that late winner from the Maeda assist.

It's another reason why Maeda through the middle is so potent, as he has so much more scope than just on the left.

It's also begs the question and hope, that the sort of homework has Rodgers been doing on Kairat? It's good players were rested for this, but what did he learn about Kairat that can be used to tweak the team to make it have more of a cutting edge on Tuesday.

This is not going to be an easy week...

• Celtic have never won in Kazakhstan in 3 previous visits.
• In fact, NO Scottish team - club, NT or even U/21's - has won in Kazakhstan
• The Hoops' 1-1 draw with Astana in 2016 is as good as it has gotten.
• Last visit there in 2017, Celtic lost 4-3. The difference being, the Hoops had a 5-0 cushion from the first leg.
• It's a 7000 mile round trip. Almaty is less than 20 miles from the Kyrgystan border and just hours from China.
• Added to which will be the unfamiliarity of adapting to the humidity and altitude.
• It's going to be HOT there. Expecting 30-34°C during the day, and will still be expected 26-27°C at kick off.
• Kairat have won all 3 of their CL Qualifiers at 'Home' so far, and have kept a clean sheet in all 3 of those.
• And after all of that, there is the small matter of a much shorter trip to Ipox next weekend.

 

Yeah. We are no longer favorites to go through. The climate and geography will cause our players to be tired. We'll need to conserve energy in order to survive in the game as long as possible.

 

Have we ever won an away match in a playoff round before?

 

Helsingborg

 

I think we will go through. On the pitch we have actually looked pretty decent so far besides the first leg, and I really dont think they look up to much. Weve shown last season we are capable of clean sheets away in europe. I think we will be fine

 

Is the keeper still out? That young boy looked a bit more shakey.

 

After all this arsing around I think we are going to cruise past them.

 

Local media saying he is our aye but never know if they are at it.