We are the Pot Four side they will all be keen to avoid
SAYS NIR BITTON CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
NIR BITTON believes Celtic can be the Pot Four team nobody wants in Thursday’s Champions League group-stage draw.
Scotland’s champions are expected to take their place amongst Europe’s elite by defending a comfortable 5-0 firstleg lead over Astana tonight.
Currently the top-ranked team in Pot Four, the Parkhead side could still be elevated to Pot Three if one of the higher-ranked teams in the play-off round is eliminated.
Greek champions Olympiakos look most vulnerable, travelling to Rijeka in Croatia defending a narrow 2-1 lead this evening.
How much difference a Pot Three placing really makes is debatable. And, on the cusp of achieving the core goal of qualification for a second straight year, Bitton is content to let others worry about Celtic.
‘I think people will look at our last campaign,’ said the midfielder, who has been pushed back into a defensive role of late by manager Brendan Rodgers.
‘They will see we had a good performance in Germany (when drawing 1-1 with Borussia Monchengladbach), we had good results and displays home and away against Man City.
‘They will look at the result against Astana the other night and the way we have played in the other qualifying games.
‘I think a lot of teams won’t want to get us from Pot Four. We need to make sure we are up for it and that it does not matter what teams we get — and I am sure we will be. The aim is to take it one step forward.
‘We want to take it one step further than last season. We want to compete for second place, maybe third place and the Europa League. We want to be playing European football after Christmas.
‘We have a squad that is capable, so, hopefully, we can do it.’
Before last Wednesday, the worst-case scenario of Europa League football was one Celtic could live with.
From the vantage point of a 5-0 first-leg lead in the play-off round, anything other than the Champions League now would be a collapse on an epic scale.
‘We couldn’t have asked for a better result,’ acknowledged Bitton. ‘But we are still going to Astana to win the game.
‘People keep telling me it will be easy — but everyone remembers Paris-Saint Germain against Barcelona last season. That showed that anything can happen in football.’
Four goals down from the first leg of a last-16 clash with PSG, Lionel Messi and Co pulled off the most remarkable comeback in Champions League history, scoring three goals in the final minutes. It’s only last September that Celtic lost seven goals in the Nou Camp. They know how savage, how brutal, the Champions League can be.
But that was Barcelona. Stanimir Stoilov’s Astana have no Messi, Neymar or Luis Suarez to retrieve a pretty hopeless situation. Not even the two goals Hapoel Be’er Sheva clung to after shipping five in Glasgow at the same stage. Celtic came close to a catastrophe in Israel in the second leg, but Bitton insisted: ‘Last season was different. The two away goals gave Be’er Sheva a lot of confidence going into the second leg, even though we had a lead. ‘Conceding the early goal was not a good start. They missed the penalty but scored early in the second half. It was a very nervy 40 minutes. ‘It’s a little different this time. We have this five-goal cushion and a clean sheet. But we don’t even want to think about losing the game. ‘We want to win and go into the Champions League with confidence.
‘No one expected us to beat Astana 5-0. It was an amazing result for us to take away from home.
‘It’s only when the game is finished that you go home and relax and then think: “Wow, we did it. We are 80 per cent in the Champions League now”.
‘But it’s not 100-per-cent done yet. We have come away to a tough place. There’s the astroturf, the heat.
‘We have to make sure we are not sloppy and don’t concede any goals. We don’t want to put ourselves under any unnecessary pressure.
‘There is no need for drama. It’s about calming the game down. Astana will have to attack, but we’ve got great speed on the counter.
‘We have strikers and attackers who can finish the game off.
‘We showed it against Rosenborg, when they came out and the game opened up. We were able to use the space really well, with the likes of James Forrest (left), Scott (Sinclair) and Griff (Leigh Griffiths) when he came on.
‘Astana tried to play football as well and we managed to used the space in between them to finish the game off.
‘It’s good we have been there before as we know what to expect. We’re getting experienced.
‘We played Be’er Sheva where it was so hot. It was the same in Kazakhstan.
‘We are ready. We know what we are facing and what we want to do.’