Celtic v Lincoln Red Imps
Wednesday 20th July 2016 Kickoff 1945hrs
Football – Champions League Qualifiers – Europe
The first leg of this tie witnessed one of the biggest shocks you can expect to happen at this stage of the Champions League as the minnows of Lincoln Red Imps from Gibraltar defeated former European Champions Celtic 1-0 at home. I alluded to the fact that the blazing temperatures, artificial pitch and the game being the first competitive action for new manager Brendan Rodgers were all going to be factors for Celtic, and that certainly proved to be the case. A very slow start where the Hoops failed to really test their opponents only added to the confidence the Red Imps received from their win over Estonian Champions Flora in the previous round. Other than a couple of half-chances late in the first half, the home team were pretty comfortable and went in at half-time, level. The second-half started all too familiar for Celtic supporters as an innocuous long ball was misjudged by the hapless Efe Ambrose to allow Lee Casciaro to control and slot past the on-rushing Craig Gordon. Despite the best efforts of Leigh Griffiths – who see two efforts smack the crossbar – Celtic were unable to find an equaliser and suffered the ignominy of losing to a team of part-timers, from a club who have only competed in European football for the last three seasons.
Despite that shock loss, Celtic are still massive favourites to progress past Lincoln Red Imps and book their place in the next round of qualifying. Brendan Rodgers was quick to defend his team for their lacklustre performance but he will be demanding a reaction tonight. It’s no secret that the new manager is looking to strengthen the squad ahead of more challenging encounters but he will have been privately disappointed with the attitude and contribution of certain players and it’s unlikely that they will be given too many more chances. However, he only has the players at his current disposal to work with this evening and try to avoid a humiliating exit. The conditions for tonight’s match should certainly suit Celtic a lot more than last week. Celtic Park’s surface (particularly now it’s rain softened) will play to the strengths of their quick-passing whilst the cooler temperatures should also be to their advantage. There has been speculation that Rodgers will look to change his tactics as well in the knowledge that the visitors will almost certainly line-up very defensively, so achieving width will be vital to break down what was a well organised outfit eight days ago.
It goes without saying that last week’s win was the best result in Lincoln Red Imps history and even if they do not manage to finish the job in Glasgow, it will be something they can look back on with a great deal of fondness in the years to come. Although they rode their luck on a couple of occasions, there was large spells of the game where the play was in front of their defenders and the midfield forced Celtic to go sideways. That will prove to be more difficult this time around as the Celtic Park pitch is much wider and it will require a great deal more energy to defend like they did for 90 minutes. Nevertheless, for a team who are made up of policemen and postmen, anything else that happens is a bonus and they will at least get to sample the atmosphere of one of the best stadiums in European football.
There has been some talk amongst the Lincoln Red Imps team that a win on Wednesday and progression to the next round of qualifying could well be an unpopular thing for the players’ wives and girlfriends. Thanks to their early start in this competition, there has not been a chance for the players to go away on holiday, and because it was deemed very unlikely they would make it past this stage, most of those holidays have been booked for next week. That’s the sort of story that illustrates just how much of a shock last week’s result was and Celtic can ill-afford to suffer another defeat as it would ensure no European football of any kind this term.
Celtic v Lincoln Red Imps Betting Tips
Whilst I was certainly not expecting Celtic to lose last week, I did envisage them labouring so early in their pre-season amidst those conditions. Wednesday’s game should be completely different, however, and I feel that it’s all set up to be a very emphatic win for the home team. A week may not be a huge amount of time but it can be critical at this stage when players are looking to regain match sharpness, and whilst the result and performance was extremely disappointing in Gibraltar, the conditioning of the players would have taken a big step forward. Saturday’s 2-1 friendly win over Wolfsburg would have also helped with that, too. Providing Celtic play with width and move the ball quickly then they will create a plethora of chances against a team of this calibre. I expect Griffiths to play up top with Moussa Dembele and that should also pose more of a problem for the visitor’s defence. I fully expect a fast start from Brendan Rodgers’ men to alleviate any doubt, so the over 1.5 first half goals should be backed at evens with Betvictor
Over 1.5 first half goals EVENS @ Betvictor
