Champions League Tuesday Preview

Celtic look to book their passage into the Champions League group stages as they travel to Kazakhstan for the second-leg of their play-off with Astana.

The Scottish champions are in fine fettle coming into the game having secured a 5-0 win in the opening leg at Parkhead.

But manager Brendan Rodgers is insisting his side will not under-estimate their opponents.

“It’s a tough game for us no matter what the lead is,” Rodgers said.

“What we’ve shown as we’ve developed is that the way we play is aggressive. We’re going to have to defend well, but we know we have the game to attack and be aggressive, so we know we can score. The job is to complete it, it’s over two legs, then sit back and enjoy the draw.”

Elsewhere, all the other ties on Tuesday are more delicately poised.

Irsraelis Hapoel Be’er Shava have a 2-1 lead to take to Slovenian against Maribor, Sevilla hold a 2-1 advantage over Turkish outfit Basaksehir with return leg to come in Spain.

Napoli will be hopeful they can hold off Nice after garnering a 2-0 win in the first-leg in Sicily, whilst Greek giants Olympiakos hold a 2-1 lead of Croatians HNK Rijeka.

See below for a run-down on the game, including predictions from former England, Crystal Palace and Tottenham midfielder and GamblingTimes.com columnist Andy Gray and our own Football Insider Graeme Bailey  together with everything you need to know from the bookies – with BoyleSports’s Leon Blanche.

Football INDEX is a stockmarket game where players, known as Traders, take a position on the “future success” of footballers with real money – CLICK HERE to play and start winning, and take advantage of your £20 cashback only with TheGamblingTimes.

Astana 16.30 Celtic
22nd August 2017

Astana Arena

2nd leg (0-5 agg)

TEAM NEWS: Nir Bitton is a doubt with a foot injury. Erik Sviatchenko, Dedryck Boyata, Moussa Dembele and Eboue Kouassi are all out.
KEY FACT: Celtic sealed a record-equalling 5-0 win in first leg
MATCH ODDS: Astana 7/4 Draw 23/10 Celtic 13/8
ANDY SAYS: Celtic will have few problems in this return leg…0-2
GRAEME SAYS: I don’t think Celtic will be firing on all cylinders and probably won’t risk all their squad but will win…0-1
SILKY SAYS: Another big Celtic win for me as they will ease into the group stages…0-4
BOYLE SPORT PICK: Celtic HT Celtic FT @10/3
FOOTBALLIndex – One to follow: Moussa Dembele at under £2 still looks a very good buy.



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