Diego Simeone has revealed that he is very wary of the threat posed by Celtic early on in games. The Atletico Madrid boss admitted that Brendan Rodgers’ team always start really strongly in games, and that this has certainly given him good for thought after we cut his side open like a hot knife through butter early doors in the last fixture at Celtic Park.
Matt O’Riley assisted Kyogo Furuhashi once again as we replicated the goal that the Japanese international scored against Lazio the match before in Group E.
It was a thing of real beauty and left the Atleti boss, his backline and team more generally, shocked to the core. It took his side a little while to get going after that and if it weren’t for a VAR check and subsequent penalty decision in their favour, the Hoops could have been strong favourites to pick up all three points on 25 October.
Fast-forward to 7 November and the Argentinian coach has warned his players to be cautious of an early Celtic onslaught. As reported by Daily Record ahead of the match, he said: “I can’t imagine any other way. I think they will play exactly the same way. They played just like that against Feyenoord, Lazio and us. That’s their style and I expect nothing else but them coming out the same way.
“We know our rival starts games really well, so we will try to do that ourselves. Fortunately we are at home in front of our own fans and I am sure their support will give us an extra push.
“The opponent plays a real high press and they didn’t really allow us time to think. We need to be able to play around that. Despite our poor start at Celtic Park, we didn’t play badly in the first half and we improved in the second half.
“We got the goal and could have got another one, but after the red card, it was just about not losing. We know it’s going to be a very, very difficult game.
“There is equal respect between Atletico and Celtic. It’s a team I have respected since I sat down to talk about them. They play a style of football I really like, so I have full respect for Celtic.”
The man who recently featured in a documentary about David Beckham on Netflix, conceded it is a tight group in section E this year and that Celtic should have taken more for their efforts thus far.
He added: “It’s a very tight group. I think Celtic deserved more against Feyenoord and Lazio. Obviously every team is going to drop points. The two teams that manage to be more consistent will be the ones that qualify for the last 16.
“We have had four days to recover and that’s enough for the extraordinary game we are going to see. There’s a lot of people anticipating this game and excitement from the fans and the team. We hope to play a great game and correct what happened against Celtic.”
He continued: “We don’t worry too much about what happened with Las Palmas. Our focus is on Celtic. You normally see a lot of goals in the Champions League because all the teams have good footballers, good forwards, they know how to play football.
“This is what the Champions League is all about. But our strength over the years has been our ability to keep a clean sheet and grow from there as a team. We will try to do that and then try to find ways to hurt a Celtic team that knows how to play.”
Paul Gillespie
