Celtic Park will be rocking on Wednesday night when the Hoops welcome the might of Lazio to Glasgow.
It’s matchday two of the UEFA Champions League group stage and an opportunity for the team to bounce back from a disappointing opener against Feyenoord.
Lazio are likely to provide tough opposition. However, their poor form and lowly standing in Serie A have many Celtic supporters believing that it could be the night to end a decade-long wait for a home Champions League group stage win.
Most of Brendan Rodgers‘ side will pick itself. However, he does still have a number of big decisions to make. Here’s how we see things going.
Joe Hart will almost certainly return after his league suspension against Motherwell at the weekend.
Alistair Johnston will make his Celtic Park bow in the competition with Greg Taylor set to play at right-back.
In the centre, we are without Gustaf Lagerbielke, Maik Nawrocki and Stephen Welsh. Cameron Carter-Vickers won’t start the match so it seems very likely that Nat Phillips and Liam Scales will. Again, both will be playing their first Champions League matches at Celtic Park.
We can’t see much changing in midfield from Saturday with Callum McGregor, Matt O’Riley and Reo Hatate a match for any opponents at this level. The latter two have both threatened big nights in this competition so far. It would be great to see them properly deliver tonight.
In attack, Rodgers had a few options to choose from. After his contribution at Fir Park, we think it would be wise to start Luis Palma on the left. That would be a big attacking switch, given that Palma has only started one game for us so far. But it feels like his kind of night.
That would mean Daizen Maeda on the right and Kyogo Furuhashi through the middle.
That’s a total of three changes from Saturday, with Hart, Phillips and Palma coming in for Bain, Lagerbielke and Yang.
Your Predicted XI in full: Hart, Johnston, Phillips, Scales, Taylor, McGregor, O’Riley, Hatate, Maeda, Palma, Kyogo.
In other news, former Barcelona star returns to Celtic Park after playing in famous 2012 night
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