Celtic face Bayern Munich this evening in the second leg of the UEFA Champions League playoffs. The Scottish Champions are in Bavaria to face the Bundesliga leaders with the tricky task of overturning the 2-1 defeat from the first leg.
Bayern are unbeaten in their last 20 UCL home games and will targeting progression as they look to win the famous trophy later this year at the Allianz Arena. Brendan Rodgers and his side will look to provide a shock but in order to take a result in the game, Celtic need to be resolute at the back and clinical moving forward.
Kasper Schmeichel will start in goals. The Dane made a couple of big saves in the first leg and he will likely require a big performance at the Allianz. Auston Trusty and Cameron Carter-Vickers will start in the central defensive pairing with Alistair Johnston at right back. Bayern targeted Greg Taylor in the first half and the inclusion of Jeffrey Schlupp could certainly assist in keeping Olise at bay.
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Callum McGregor will captain Celtic with Reo Hatate and Arne Engels in the middle of the park. In attack, expect Daizen Maeda to start through the middle with Jota on the wing and Nicolas Kühn looking to torment his former club. Adam Idah and Yang will be required to provide attacking options from the bench.
Predicted XI: Schmeichel; Schlupp, Trusty, Carter-Vickers, Johnston; McGregor, Hatate, Engels; Jota, Maeda, Kühn.
Would be my preferred starting 11 also, but the lack of options from the bench, still remains a potential problem for ourselves at this level also.
Plenty available for squad rotation within SPFL, and Paulo a huge loss for games like tonight imo?
The knock on effect, remains that we are still a few short within squad numbers for CL quality games.
But attracting the likes of the quality players required for CL level for ourselves, still won’t be as easy without guaranteed starting positions available for the likes either imo?
Tonight should give us a great indication as to where our Club should be intending to be heading at this level?
The unanswered question remains as to whether we do actually intend of heading in such a direction?