Champions League qualifying: Celtic vs KR Reykjavik preview

adamhigginsuk
Jul 22, 2014
4 min read

Congratulations: McGregor receives the plaudits from his team- mates after scoring the decisive goal in the first leg (Picture from Zimbio.com)

CELTIC will hope to complete an aggregate victory over KR Reykjavik when they meet in Tuesday's return leg of their Champions Leagie second qualifying round tie.

The Hoops beat the Icelandic champions 1-0 last week through Calum McGregor's deflected late strike in the first leg.

The game will take place at Edinburgh's Murrayfield, the home of Scottish rugby, with Celtic Park unavailable because of the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony in Glasgow.

The winners of the tie will face either Polish outfit Legia Warsaw or St Patrick's Athletic of Dublin in the next round.

The Scottish champions bossed the first leg, hitting the woodwork three times before McGregor struck on his first competitive start with six minutes to go.

Ronny Deila, who has hailed the state of the newly-laid pitch at Murrayfield, said after the win he expects a better performance from his players in the second leg.

KR, who are currently third in their domestic league, have never previously competed in the Champions League qualifiers and will be battling against the odds to reach unchartered territory.

They will take some confidence from their comprehensive 4-1 win over Valur at the weekend, which came after back-to-back losses.

But, although they are trailing in the tie, boss Runar Kristinsson says his side will predominantly employ a defensive approach against the Hoops.

"It's a very big task ahead of us, we had a difficult game against them back home," he said.

"Celtic had most of the ball so we'd expect the same. We defended well back home so we're going to see if we can do that again but mount some better counter-attacks this time and try to hurt them more than we did in Iceland.

"I believe in it, of course, it's 11 against 11 and we'll try to put up some strategy to slow them down. Then, when we get a chance to attack we'll do that.

"But we're not rushing forward in the beginning, we need to start slowly and slow down the tempo a bit. We have to make sure we get good counters in."

Adam's prediction: Celtic 2-0 KR Reykjavik

Team News:

Celtic will be without Irish striker Anthony Stokes because of a hamstring injury, although he should be back in action by the end of the week.

Kris Commons will be available after overcoming a thigh knock sustained in the pre-season friendly draw against Dynamo Dresden on Saturday.

Captain Scott Brown is ruled out for three months with a hamstring problem and winger James Forrest is again absent with a groin injury.

Goalkeeper Fraser Forster will play despite Celtic rejecting a bid from Southampton for his services earlier in the day.

Provisional Celtic squad: Forster (GK), Gordon (GK), Zaluska (GK), Matthews, Lustig, Ambrose, Van Dijk, Izaguirre, Commons, Kayal, Biton, Boerrigter, Johansen, Mulgrew, McGregor, Griffiths, Pukki, Watt, Henderson, O'Connell.

Former Celtic trainee Kjartan Henry Finnbogason - who was at Parkhead between 2005 and 2008 - and English striker Gary Martin - who was released by Middlesbrough four years ago - are likely to keep their places in the KR attack.

Possible Line-Ups:

Celtic (4-2-3-1): Fraser Forster, Adam Matthews, Efe Ambrose, Virgil van Dijk, Emilio Izaguirre, Charlie Mulgrew (C), Stefan Johansen, Kris Commons, Calum McGregor, Leigh Griffiths, Teemu Pukki.

KR Rekjavik (4-4-2): Stefan Magnusson, Gretar Sigurdsson (C), Egil Jonsson, Gonzalo Lorenzo, Haukur Hauksson, Gunnar Gunnarsson, Baldur Sigurdsson, Oskar Hauksson, Almar Ormarsson, Gary Martin, Kjartan Henry Finnbogason.

Betting Odds:

(According to Ladbrokes on 22 July 2014)

Celtic win: 6/1

Draw: 16/1

KR Reykjavik win: 50/1

KEY MATCH FACTS:

Celtic are embarking on their 50th campaign in European competition.

The Hoops won two and drawn three of their five warm-up games while they have scored just once in five of their last six matches.

Part-timers KR Reykjavik - the 26-time Icelandic Urvalsdeild winners - are 12 matches into their domestic season which runs between May and October.

Murrayfield will become Celtic's fourth different home ground for a European tie (after Celtic Park, Hampden Park and Old Trafford).

The last European tie to be played at Murrayfield was Hearts' 2-0 loss to Sparta Prague in 2006 - a game in which current Celtic goalkeeper Craig Gordon played in.

Celtic's only previous home game against Icelandic opponents was a 7-0 victory over Valur in 1975. Kenny Dalglish was among the scorers.

KR Reykjavik have visited Scotland on two previous occasions. They lost 10-0 to Aberdeen in 1967 and 2-0 to Kilmarnock in 1999.

MATCH OFFICIALS:

Latvian referee Andris Treimanis and his assistants.jpg

Referee: Andris Treimanis (Latvia) Assistant referees: Haralds Gudermanis (Latvia) and Aleksejs Spasjonnikovs (Latvia) Fourth Official: Vadims Direktorenko (Latvia)