Spartak Moscow - Celtic UEFA Champions League - Matchday 2 Kick Off: Tuesday 2nd October - 5pm BST Latest team news Celtic Samaras is fit and should start Adam Matthews is a doubt still after twisting his ankle on Friday during training Joe Ledley and Beram Kayal have both returned to action recently although Joe has seen a bit more time on the pitch and may have a better chance of being involved. Lassad is out with a calf injury. Spartak Moscow Andriy Dikan - 1st choice keeper is out with a shoulder injury Sergei Parshivlyuk - their captain will be missing due to injury Also unavailable are Brazilian striker Welliton and Brazilian midfielder Romulo Same rules apply for Celtic for these away matches in the CL. Don't do anything silly in the opening 15-20mins. Try and get a foothold in the game, probably be deploying a 4-5-1 formation. I'd go with - Forster Lustig Ambrose Wilson Izzaguire Samaras Brown Mulgrew Ledley Commons Hooper Bring James Forrest on in the second half when they became usually becomes stretched.
Whoops Forgot about big Viktor. Drop Wilson. Slot Mulgrew back into central defence next to Ambrose and have Viktor in the middle of the park.
Great match preview. Don't know how Spartak is playing in the Russian Premiere League (currently 5th in the league), but the distance and probably weather would make a 1-1 result seem like a big moral victory.
Without jinxing the team I reckon Spartak can be got at. They are dangerous going forward but they do concede goals fairly regularly and Nicolas Pareja might not be fit for todays match either. Aiden will be a threat against us but if Samaras is fully fit and is on his game then he could cause a lot of trouble down their flanks which could create more space for Hooper and late arriving mids (Brown, Ledley) in their box.
Celtic Team for tonight - Forster Lustig Ambrose Wilson Izaguirre Commons Brown Wanyama Mulgrew Samaras Hooper Subs: Zaluska, Miku, Ledley, Watt, Rogne, Kayal, Forrest Only change from Saturday's victory over Motherwell is Sammi in for James Forrest. Pretty strong bench.
1-1 at HT Took the lead from a nice finish by Hooper, stearing in an excellent low cross from Lustig. We were a little sloppy at times on the ball but we had played very well and Spartak only had one reasonable chance from a header that their striker failed to connect with. But an equaliser 4mins before HT was disappointing, especially considering the lay off across goal came from a 45yd pass over the top of Kelvin Wilson who was sleeping and failed to react anywhere near quick enough to restrict the cross from coming in. Hopeful for the 2nd half. I'd imagine we may see all 3 subs being used (Ledley, Kayal, Forrest) as the match progresses.
WOWWWW!!!! Full time Celtic 3, Spartak 2 Winner from Samaras in the 90th minute. Can't wait to see the highlights as I am stuck at work and had to follow the game via Twitter.
http://www.101greatgoals.com/gvideos/spartak-moscow-2-celtic-3/ Just saw the highlights. Stunning & typical header from Samaras! The red card surely helped, but you still have to score 2 goals ... and the guys finally proved that they can score on the road (did the Bhoys ever score 3 away goals in the CL?).
Thanks for posting those "Rutube" highlights. Good stuff! It looked like Spartak had a pretty good atmosphere going from their crowd. What a fantastic win, Borussia: I see you are in Furth, my mother was from Amberg on the other side of Nuremburg from you. I still have many relatives in the area.
What's this "Rep" thing all about anyway? I'm not familiar with that from other message boards I've participated with. I repped one post earlier and now I don't see that option anymore. Are you limited to like one rep per week? I looked and couldn't find any information on the site.
It's down there next to the quote button. At different times there have been limits on new users of the board, but I'm unaware that rep is one of them. It used to be that people could positively or negatively rep a post, but there were limits one the number of times per week and how frequently a user could rep the same user. They also had the option of leaving a sort of private message with the rep. The total number of rep points a user had received showed up in a score on the user's profile. The system was often abused, and now only positive rep is possible and it's more public.
It was an excellent come from behind victory, regardless of whether the other team were reduced to 10 men or not. I've only just recovered.
Other Celtic news... Charlie Mulgrew has signed a new deal with the club. Our youth team were also successful in Europe this week with a 3-1 victory over PSV in the Next GEN series which is the equivalent of a Champions League youth tournament. http://www.celticfc.net/newsstory?item=3162 Fraser Forster has been called up to the England squad for the first time.
Celtic - Hearts, SPL, Celtic Park - Sunday 7th October 12.45pm KO BST Adam Matthews is still only 50-50 for this match but Lassad has recovered from his injury and is fit to play. Scott Brown and others may be rested for this one after their CL exertions. I'd imagine players such as Lassad, Miko, Ledley and Kayal would come into contention for a start for this one. A good win required to keep up the recent good vein of form we have finally got ourselves in after a sluggish start to the season.
Think this match is on live here! For some odd reason, my wife likes the name/crest/kit of Hearts, maybe just nostalgic about our honeymoon in UK (London + Edinburgh).
Nice. Btw: I attended the BL game "Fürth vs HSV" last Saturday ... and was wearing my green/white Celtic jacket. Some of the HSV supporters I met weren't amused...
St Mirren 0-5 Celtic A 5* performance from the team, especially in the first half with the goals coming from Hooper, Ambrose (his first for the club), Wanyama (x2) and Watt. Some players were rested and others were carrying knocks and not risked to give them every chance of making the trip to the Camp Nou on Tuesday evening. Brown, Commons, Forrest and Samaras were all given the day off and players such as Ledley and Kayal were given the full 90mins as they get match fitness levels up after injury. NL played a 4-3-3 formation with Gary Hooper dropping deep at times and allowing both Lassad and Watt to be the main front runners. But he was still evident as the main striker for large periods of the match and after Lassad was slipped through on the right hand side of the box Hooper had the simple task of finishing his accurate low cross from only a few yards out. Poor defending from St Mirren gifted us 2 more quick goals before Victor curled in a peach from about 25yds. With the team 4 up at HT our intensity level dropped off and with it our tempo, allowing St Mirren to see a bit more of the ball in the second half. We still managed a 5th goal though as Izzy's cross was met perfectly by Tony Watt (who had an excellent match) to bullet a header into the top corner. So a very comfortable run out before we head to Barcelona. Anything we get from that game would be a huge bonus.