Celtic visit the Spanish champions at Camp Nou tonight.
Charlie Nicholas has predicted on Sky Sports that Celtic will lose 4-0 at Barcelona in their Champions League opener tonight.
Brendan Rodgers’s side went through hell to book their place in the group stages of Europe’s elite competition, but it is set to get much, much harder for the Hoops.
The Bhoys visit Camp Nou on the back of a morale-boosting 5-1 destruction of Old Firm rivals Rangers on Saturday, but this is another animal altogether.
Barcelona away is one of the toughest fixtures in world football, if not the most difficult, but Celtic can and will take heart from the fact that Alaves beat them 2-1 in Camp Nou at the weekend.
And Nicholas feels that his former club’s best chance lies in set pieces, but he believes that Rodgers and co will lose 4-0 eventually.
“It’s a great game in terms of the occasion and Celtic rarely actually get hammered when they face Barcelona,” he told Sky Sports.
“Celtic are a threat at set-pieces but I can’t see how many they’ll get and Scott Sinclair and Moussa Dembele aren’t experienced at this level, so I’d be happy with walking away with a 2-0 defeat.
“Barca obviously had a bad result at the weekend but Neymar and Andres Iniesta got some game-time while Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez had a break. 4.0.”
This fixture will conjure up happy memories for Celtic fans, who saw their Bhoys edge out the Catalan giants in Paradise back in 2012. Could they replicate that scoreline in the Blaugrana’s backyard? Unlikely, but possible.
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