Brendan Rodgers’s Celtic will face FC Astana at Celtic Park in the Champions League playoff tie this week.
Scottish Premiership club Celtic will take on Kazakhstan Premier League outfit Astana in the first leg of the Champions League playoff round at Celtic Park on Wednesday evening.
Celtic legend Dalglish has backed Brendan Rodgers’s side to win the first leg in Glasgow, and so has Kris Commons.
The 33-year-old former Celtic attacking midfielder has predicted a 2-0 or a 3-1 victory for the home team if Leigh Griffiths is fit.
Moussa Dembele is on the sidelines at the moment with a hamstring injury, while fellow striker Griffiths had been struggling with calf problems but he is now fit, as reported by The Glasgow Evening Times.
“Look at the difference in Scott Brown, James Forrest, Leigh Griffiths, Callum McGregor and Keiran Tierney, to name but a few,” Dalglish in The Sunday Post (print edition, page 81, August 13, 2017) while highlighting the improvement of the Celtic team since last summer.
“Scott Sinclair has also been added to the team since then. So, I fancy Celtic to win the game and to take a nice lead over to Kazakhstan.”
“If Griffiths is fit, 2-0 or 3-1,” Commons told BBC Sport. “I think they’ll score plenty of goals.”
Celtic have problems in defence as well. Centre-backs Dedryck Boyata and Erik Sviatchenko are injured at the moment, and manager Rodgers has deployed Nir Bitton as a central defender.
Bitton is a defensive midfielder by trade, but in recent games the 25-year-old has been deployed as a defender, and it will be interesting to see how he performs against Astana.
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