Dan Petrescu says he gets “scared” watching Celtic

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CFR Cluj manager Dan Petrescu has cranked up the mind games ahead of his meeting with Celtic this week.

The shrewd tactician has claimed that he gets scared whenever he watches Celtic due to how many chances we create during matches. That’s also despite the fact his side have already played us and managed a 1-1 draw.

It smacks of similar talk from last week when he tried to say that beating Celtic would be a “miracle” (Daily Record). Petrescu is continuously trying to push the pressure onto Celtic ahead of tomorrow night’s meeting at Parkhead.

And, as he continued to play games with the Hoops, he’s once again bigged them up to Romanian media. Speaking to Gazeta Sporturilor, Petrescu said he feels the fear when watching Neil Lennon’s side.

“Celtic is the favourite. You’ve seen it in the Championship. They have young players whilst we have older footballers. I’m afraid because we were too lucky with Hermannstadt. I hope the luck hasn’t ran out!

“When you watch Celtic’s matches, you get scared. They have 30 opportunities! It’s like playing against Barcelona! We will have to defend very well.”

Mind games didn’t work last week and shouldn’t this week

Why Petrescu feels the need to come out with quips like this is anyone’s guess. He tried to do something similar last week and it backfired on him. Celtic took Cluj seriously, and we’ll continue to do so when they visit Celtic Park.

Comments like these just make the former Chelsea man come across as a fool. There’s no real intelligence or logic to it. The Celtic players will hardly care what he says, so who is this meant to affect?

You can say that he’s just trying to be complimentary about the Hoops. But that doesn’t feel like it’s the case, instead it comes across as just another set of Petrescu’s mind-games.

Playing Celtic most certainly isn’t like playing Barcelona, and the Cluj manager will know that. Trying to lull us into a false sense of security won’t work on our group of players.

Tomorrow night could make or break the early part of our season. Neil Lennon won’t allow his men to be dragged into these silly games by Petrescu.

Perhaps he’ll be singing a different tune after tomorrow night should Celtic win. But there’s no denying Petrescu will be saying something different to his players behind the scenes.