Celtic head to Aston Villa hoping to win their last Champions League group tie of the season.
Hoops boss Brendan Rodgers travels to Birmingham without key Celtic men Cameron Carter-Vickers and Daizen Maeda with the American out injured and the Japanese winger suspended after being red-carded in Celtic’s win over Young Boys.
With a seeded playoff place still up for grabs, there is still plenty for Celtic and Aston Villa to play for as the two teams face off for the first time in a European competition.
And in the build-up to the game, Villa boss Unai Emery seems to have enraged some of his own fans after what he said about facing Celtic in the Champions League.
What Unai Emery said about Celtic’s upcoming Champions League visit to Villa Park
Emery told AV TV, “It is fantastic to play to play Champions League matches. It’s fantastic to play against teams like Celtic.
“I played before in the Champions League against them with another club and as always the atmosphere, of course, tomorrow’s in Villa Park, but there are going to be, as well, supporters of Celtic here and it’s very good to enjoy football like that, very deep football.”
Aston Villa fans react to Unai Emery’s comments about facing Celtic in the Champions League
It seems those comments have not gone down well with some of the Villa support with some of them saying Emery has ‘lost the plot’.
One fan, @djb421977, said, “For the 1st time I think the manager has lost the plot and is protecting players. He states we have a big enough squad to compete, he’s deluded. We need a striker to replace Diaby we need a CB to replace Pau a CB to replace Carlos Mings who is injured too.”
One fan predicts a late series of events that Celtic could exploit:
A bit of positivity from @k3zzab3ll3 who can’t wait for Celtic’s visit, “Just watching this gives me goosebumps.”
But back to the negativity as @aliensarehere51 says about Emery’s comments, “I’m starting to think what he means by deep football Emery means boring negative.
“Southgate’s England-style football. It’s boring and we conceded to West Ham because we had no right-sided defenders which we all could see last season we needed. But Villa did nothing still nothing.”
Another fan said, “Deluded man’s losing the plot and becoming Paul Lambert. Can’t fault the effort of the lads they were great but we lost. Squad’s great but we’re short of 4 players. Manager becoming lost.”
And finally, one Villa fan seems to be getting fed up with his team’s performances, “You lost to Monaco with the worst football performance I’ve seen in ages. You tied 1-1 at home. Bro just win a game.”
It seems that there is a lack of confidence amongst some of the Premier League club’s fans about beating Celtic but whatever happens, at least both sets of supporters know that they will be in the draw for the next round of Europe’s top competition.
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