Celtic v Lincoln Red Imps Preview

Celtic winger Patrick Roberts is dreaming of reaching the Champions League group stage with the Bhoys after he helped them put out Lincoln Red Imps at Paradise this evening.

The Hoops now have only two fit central defenders in Erik Sviatchenko and Efe Ambrose and they are facing Wednesday’s Champions League signing deadline to register new players for the third qualifying round of the tournament.

Celtic suffered one of the most humiliating defeats in their illustrious history last week when they went down 1-0 away against the semi-professional Gibraltar outfit, Lincoln Red Imps, in the first leg of their second round Champions League qualifier (a squad which boasted a taxi driver, a fireman and a customs official in their ranks).

Rodgers will be keen to prove a point in this fixture, after many Celtic legends have already begun doubting his tenure in Glasgow.

“It is another test for us, and the focus now will be getting a good performance over there”.

The 43-year-old Northern Irishman – who was a surprise high profile choice to replace Norwegian predecessor Ronny Deila in May – will come under extreme pressure if Celtic don’t overcome the 1-0 deficit to the Imps.

“We’ve got a very strong record domestically”.

The Hoops boss would not comment on specific names but said: “There is a couple of players that we are looking at but we will see how that develops over the coming days”.

“There is still a long way to go but I must congratulate the players – they have taken in a lot of concepts and ideas in a short space of time about how we want to work”, he said.

“I guess we can expect a reaction to what happened last Tuesday and the crowd is going to be an important factor”.

“But I thought the first half-hour was excellent”.

“Overall I was pleased to get through, it certainly wasn’t ideal, there is a way to go for us in terms of where I want us to be”. We scored three and could have had a few more.