Shakhtar Donetsk head coach Igor Jovicevic has warned his players to expect a difficult test against Celtic tomorrow in Warsaw on matchday two of the UEFA Champions League.
Shakhtar were in lethal form last week away to RB Leipzig, picking up a shock 4-1 result that ended in the sacking of Domenico Tedesco. Despite that, Jovicevic isn’t getting carried away and knows the threat that Celtic will carry into tomorrow night’s big fixture.
He also played down the information that could be provided by former winger Marian Shved, who doesn’t know many of the big performers in Ange Postecoglou’s eleven.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference, Jovicevic said of the Celtic match [Shakhtar.com]: “Marian could not help much, because Celtic have changed a lot since Shved played for them. Now we are talking about a new team, which with a new head coach got a great result Scottish Premiership. They look convincing. They play dynamic, aggressive, combination football of an attacking type. Tomorrow it will be difficult for us to resist in terms of desire, dynamics and fight but we cannot give in.
“Tomorrow we will play an opponent who is in excellent form. I think there are several options to win this match, both with the ball and without the ball. In the last match against Chornomorets, we had the ball 70% of the time, but we didn’t score three or four goals, and there were difficulties. And in the game with Leipzig the possession was 39%; however, we played a frantic game and took advantage of the space.
“The question is what we do and how effectively we do it when we have the ball. I repeat: we expect a difficult match, but we want to have fun and convince ourselves that we can play at the same level as against Leipzig. The squad has a good atmosphere. Everyone is ready for tomorrow’s match, but for everything to end positively, many factors need to coincide. We are ready.”
Tomorrow is going to tell us a lot about Group F. Were Shakhtar simply capitalising on a Leipzig at the end of their journey under a failing boss? Are Celtic really up for the qualification fight?
Part of the excitement about tomorrow is just the unknown. It’s a really hard game to call, and nobody really knows how it is going to play out – even the managers, by the sound of it.
Jovicevic is making it clear he can see various ways to the end result tomorrow. Picking up all three points will be as much about adaptability and reaction to the opposition as anything else.
Celtic have shown aptitude for that in the past, so hopefully Postecoglou can find the magic blend for a famous result.
In other news, Josip Juranovic and Scott Brown send support as Celtic icon Tom Rogic returns to Instagram.
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