‘We will play with no fear’, says Roberts
● Patrick Roberts relishes chance to face player whose game he wants to emulate ● Celtic winger aiming to prove himself on big stage
Patrick Roberts believes Celtic will be an emboldened force against Bayern Munich tomorrow night, and insists they will play with “no fear”.
The on-loan Manchester City winger believes the 3-0 victory at Anderlecht in their last Champions League assignment three weeks ago – Celtic’s first win in the competition for four years – has changed the mindset of the Scottish champions, even for a test as daunting as awaits them in the Allianz Arena.
It was all the more unexpected following the 5-0 pasting at home to Paris Saint-germain in their Group B opener.
“The Anderlecht game just showed our quality and our intent this year, particularly after the first game,” Roberts said. “You might have thought it was the same as last year [when Celtic did not post a win in the group stages], but we had that mentality not to let that happen again.
“To go there and score three goals was top drawer and we will take that into our next games.
“Bayern are one of the best teams in world football, so we will have to be really on our game. But these are the occasions we strive for. So we will look forward to it, be positive, show no fear and hope things work out for us.”
There is a candour about Patrick Roberts when he assesses the confrontation that Celtic will fly out to Munich for this afternoon.
The 20-year-old earned himself the sponsors’ man-of-the-match award in Saturday’s scratchy win over Dundee. It is the prospect of strutting his stuff in the iconic football citadel of the Allianz on Champions League duty, though, that had the Manchester City employee itching to head back north for another loan spell in the summer following 18 months spent in Glasgow. And, frankly, the Scottish champions’ willingness to pay the £42,000-a-week salary of the winger City enticed from Fulham in a £12m deal was not related to any need for his talents on the domestic scene.
“This is why they brought me back, and why I wanted to come back. For these nights,” Roberts said of taking on the might of Bayern Munich in club football’s most prestigious tournament. “I want to push on in European competition, which is an aim. Hopefully, we can do that.”
In truth, there is little hope of Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic, and Roberts, burnishing their Champions League credentials at the home of an institution that have, on five occasions, claimed the club game’s greatest prize.
Even allowing for the upheaval that led Bayern to bin manager Carlos Ancelotti and turn, for a fourth time, to favourite their coaching son, Jupp Heynckes. The 72-year-old seems to have had an instant recuperative effect, with his return to the club’s technical area marked by Saturday’s 5-0 thumping of Freiburg that brought the German champions their biggest win of the season.
Indeed, for all that Celtic come into the game on the back of their 3-0 victory over Anderlecht – their finest away win in the Champions League across 16 years in the competition – and the creditable draw in Moenchengladbach the last time they were in Germany, the odds are so heavily stacked against them tomorrow night as to be off the scale.
None of this, though, prevents Roberts relishing the chance to mix it with the game’s elite.
“I’ve never played there before. It will be a brilliant and different experience in Munich,” he said.
There will be knowns as well as unknowns about the excursion for Roberts. In Arjen Robben, the youngster will be sharing a pitch with a player he has made no secret of having modelled his own jinking wing play on.
“I have always enjoyed the way he comes inside and shoots,” he said of the 33-yearold Dutchman. “I’ve tried to emulate that, come in and shoot like that since he was at Chelsea, and I was only a young boy.
“I scored one like he did in his last game for Holland [in the 2-0 win over Sweden with which the Dutch ended an unsuccessful World Cup qualifying campaign a week ago] at training.
“Players like that put the hard work in at training throughout the years and that is why they are on the biggest stage in world football. I hope one day that can be me, but I need to keep practising my technique.” A bit of local knowledge might also be provided by a player Roberts knows from the City youth set-up. Jadon Sancho, pictured left, moved to Borussia Dortmund from the Manchester club in a £10m deal during the summer. Yesterday, he returned to Germany after helping England progress from the group
stages of the Under-17 World Cup in India with a 100 per cent record after the national team were unable to strike an agreement with Dortmund to keep him at the tournament for the duration of their stay in it.
“I don’t know if I will speak to him because he’s been in India, but he is a top player,” Roberts said of the 17-year-old.
“He made the decision to go to Dortmund this summer which a lot of people might have thought was surprising, but it is a great opportunity.
“It is a massive team, he is a top player and I am sure we will be seeing his name a lot in seasons to come.”
Roberts will be hoping nights like tomorrow in the Allianz will be a sign that the same can apply to him.
“This is why they brought me back, and why I wanted to come back. For these nights... I’ve never played there before. It will be a brilliant and different experience in Munich” “I have always enjoyed the way he [Robben] comes inside and shoots. I’ve tried to emulate that, come in and shoot like that since he was at Chelsea, and I was only a young boy”
PATRICK ROBERTS