Marco Rose, RB Leipzig’s new manager, has spoken of what he expects when his side play Celtic at Parkhead on Tuesday after beating the Hoops 3-1 in Germany.
This week’s match was disappointing for the Hoops in many ways. The loss to RB Leipzig was made worse by conceding a poor goal following a Joe Hart error and of course the injury to skipper Callum McGregor. We’ll have to wait to hear more of his situation, but Ange Postecoglou wasn’t sounding too hopeful after the match.
The loss means the Hoops need to pick up some Champions League points from their next couple of games to have any hope of continuing in Europe after the group stage ends. Whether that’s to be in the Champions League or Europa League, they’ll need a positive result from their next two home games, against RB Leipzig and Shakhtar Donetsk respectively.
In their first two games in the tournament, the Hoops created but were unable to finish several chances in front of goal. That remained the case against RB Leipzig and will be one of the factors making Rose concerned about the return tie in Parkhead.
Celtic Park atmosphere to help back the players
As reported by the Daily Record, after Wednesday’s tie Rose reflected on the match just played and about knowing his side would be in for a tough time next week:
"“At times today it was a wild, uncontrolled match, and for a long time it was a very intense match as well. In the end, I feel we deserve our win – we had many chances, had two goals disallowed and scored three.“Hopefully this will give us quite a boost for the weeks to come. Then, next Tuesday in Glasgow, we are in for a hot ride – we can be sure of that.”"
We may see a boost to the team squad as even if McGregor remains unavailable the Hoops might have the return of Cameron Carter-Vickers and Liel Abada to contend for starting positions.
We’ll also have the famous Celtic Park atmosphere to provide extra backing for the players. Some players have faded towards the end of the Champions League games, and that packed and noisy crowd may provide a boost to overcome that. It certainly could be a hot ride for Leipzig.