BRENDAN RODGERS will insist that his Celtic players are allowed water breaks against Alashkert in the Champions League Qualifier today (match kicks off at 5pm Celtic Park time).
It may not be something that the Armenian Champions will want though as they could see the intense heat as giving them an added advantage over the visitors.
“We will speak to the referee about water breaks. We did that in our pre-season trip to Austria.
“Obviously in these conditions the health and safety of the players is important because the heat is a factor, so we’ll see what we can do.”
Celtic have been training in warm conditions in Austria and even played in extremely hot temperatures in Dublin on Saturday – who would have thought that that the Irish heat could have been something that would assist Celtic! Brendan continued:
“What makes it difficult is when you are not accustomed to it.
“I’d say there is a certain temperature when it becomes dangerous, and I don’t think this is it.
“You just need to manage the football game, and it’s a different type of football.
“But it’s a challenge we’re looking forward to. You may go to World Cups and other situations as players where you have to deal with the conditions.
“But we’ve prepared well, and we’re at the best place we can be at this stage of pre-season.
“There is a challenge with the heat, you can feel it just walking about. But we’ll look to cope with that hopefully.”
Rodgers also revealed that his skipper will be ready for today’s game after being on the receiving end of a few tasty challenges from Shamrock Rovers players in the first half on Saturday. Scott Brown was substituted at the interval, more as a precaution with today’s game in mind.
“Yeah, Brown should be fine,” Brendan said.
“He will train here, it was just precautionary really last weekend. He is very important for us and hopefully he will be fit.”
Today’s hosts are hopeful that they can cause Celtic some real problems and maybe even achieve an historic upset for themselves.
The Alashkert captain Artur Yedigaryan said: “Celtic is a strong opponent with a big history, but Alashkert wants to go as far as possible in the Champions League and we’ll do our best to bring joy to our fans.”
