Nicolas Kühn has revealed that all at Celtic Park are looking forward to the last UEFA Champions League group stage match against Aston Villa next week…

The Hoops travel to Villa Park and will face-off against the Premeir Legaue side on Matchday 8 of the league phase this year. With qualification to the knockout rounds secured last Wednesday, the team can now look ahead to the final game.
It took eveything in the tank on the past matchday to get past BSC Young Boys and with three goals chalked off for offside and a missed penalty, many wondered if it was to be our night. But late into the game, Reo Hatate produced a moment of magic and played in Adam Idah with a delightful through ball, which Irishman then converted through the help of a fortunate deflection off of Loris Benito.

It didn’t matter how it was done in the end, the important thing was winning and making that knockout phase for the first time in over a decade. Kühn has admitted that the Bhoys have shown they can compete at this level and even thinks that Dortmund humbling has been the making of this team in Europe. “I think it was important,” Kuhn said via Glasgow Times. “That was just a really perfect day for Dortmund I think, and a bad one for us. We kept going, and we came through and showed what we can really do at this level.
“It was really important [to qualify]. That was a huge goal for everyone, and I think we deserved it. We had a pretty good start, but then we had the Dortmund game, which showed we had a lot that we had to work on.
“Over the next five games we earned a lot of points, so I think we deserved to go through, and now we have another game to look forward to. We weren’t happy that we couldn’t finish [Young Boys] off even in the first half, but in the end, we got the win, and we earned it.”

The reaction to that chastening defeat in Germany saw a fantastic response as the Hoops held Europa League holders to a 0-0 in Bergamo, which has eluded many teams before. It was huge,” he said. “It was an amazing game for us to play against a team like them, who are known for scoring a lot of goals at the top level and being aggressive in one-on-ones, and to do such a good job and keep a clean sheet. Now we’re really looking forward to that last game in the group.”

A trip to Birmingham lies in store next then for the team and with both teams looking to possibly make the Top 8 and avoid a play-off round altogether, it makes for a tantalising prospect. The former Bayern Munich and Ajax star said of the potential match-up: “We are really looking forward to it and hopefully we can put on another good performance. Apart from the Dortmund game, away from home we have had some good games and haven’t conceded too many goals since that one game. I think we can all look forward to it.”
Paul Gillespie
