Everybody hoped it would happen, but Red Bull Salzburg’s squad don’t look like dropping big players tonight.
The Austrian side haven’t reported any serious injuries or omissions from their squad to face Celtic this evening. Midfielders Amadou Haidara and Reinhold Yabo are sidelined. They’re also joined by defenders Jasper van der Werff and Patrick Farkas.
Xavier Schlager is also missing through suspension. Outside of that? Red Bull are good to go for the crunch clash tonight.
Bearing in mind there is nothing to play for tonight for Salzburg, many would’ve expected them to rest some stars.
They may very well still keep the likes of Munas Dabbur and Takumi Minamino on the bench, but it’s highly unlikely. The likes of Fredrik Gulbrandson is available should one drop out anyway, showing the firepower the Austrians contain.
The idea of “Red Bull Unity” as it’s been titled by many in recent days is still a factor. Salzburg and Leipzig are both owned by the same company. Despite Salzburg doing the business against the Germans last time out, they may want to help them qualify alongside them.
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Supporters of both clubs have a rivalry with each other that’s fairly bitter, however, so it won’t be Salzburg’s main motivation heading into the game.
Salzburg are in incredible form
That could lie in the fact that Red Bull are unbeaten this season in all games. They’ve won all five Europa League matches, and didn’t even lose in the Champions League qualifiers either. Instead, it was a 2-2 draw on away-goals that ko’d them against Red Star Belgrade.
It looks as though this is a record that the Austrians are desperate to keep up. They’ve arrived in Scotland with many of their big-hitters, and they’re not here for sightseeing.
Red Bull have already outlined their intentions to go for the win tonight. They want to show total dominance over their Group B opponents, and that’s a concern for Celtic.
Of course, Brendan Rodgers won’t have been preparing for anything less. He’ll know just how good Salzburg are, and will have been scouting their best stars ahead of this one.
It would’ve been nice had Red Bull decided to leave some of their best players at home. Unfortunately, however, they’re here to do a job.
In typical Celtic fashion, that means the club have to do things the hard way. This is a support, however, that have grown used to that over the years.