Celt’s hunger for a midnight feast

MIKAEL LUSTIG says Celtic will have to go on the night shift this week to stay in the hunt for a Champions League Group place.

Winners at the second time of asking against Lincoln Red Imps of Gibraltar, the Hoops now travel to Kazakhstan, where they will face Astana on Wednesday night.

And with his experience of the former Soviet republic extending beyond a passing familiarity with the Borat satire, the defender admitted the task isn’t straightforward.

“It will be far tougher in Astana,” said Lustig, scorer of his team’s opener in the 3-0 win last Wednesday.

“We’ve been to Kazakhstan before, in 2013 in the Champions League play-off, and lost 2-0 to Shakhter Karagandy.

“We got through by overturning the first leg result back in Glasgow but it shows how difficult it can be.”

As manager Brendan Rodgers joked, apart from the six-hour flight, five-hour time difference, 35C temperatures and a plastic pitch, it should be fine!

“The time difference is something you have to think about and we will try to do everything to cope with that,” said Lustig.

“You are better staying in your own time zone instead of trying to change. That’s what we did with the Swedish national team. You just stay up to 4am or 5am and have dinner in the middle of the night.

“Teams such as Germany have done that, and it works.

“It is strange to be eating at that time, but you don’t feel like you need to sleep, so it is better to do that.

“However, it will harder for them over here. The kick-of time will be at 1am for them, so hopefully that gives us an advantage.

“And though you never want to sit on a plane for six hours, we will go over on Monday, which gives us a couple of days to get over it.

“When you play away from home, you need to take your opportunities,” he continued.

“We had a good chance in the last five minutes over there and hit the bar. After that, they scored from a throw-in and that made it difficult.

“But we have great players, with Patrick Roberts showing unbelievable skills against Lincoln.

“He got a great goal and showed he can be a very important player for us.”