NIR Bitton insists Celtic being a pot-four Champions League team won’t mean pot luck for whoever they are drawn against.
There is still a chance Celtic could wind up in pot three – there remains a minute possibility Astana could knock them out which would make this all null and void of course – but, as things stand, they will be the fourth ranked team in a group of four.
This is where Celtic are, which is hardly a disaster, but it’s not something that concerns Bitton who is of the mind that his team will be the one everyone wants to avoid when it comes to the final teams being drawn on Thursday.
“We don’t think about what other teams think about us,” said the Israeli, a man who gives off the impression of never having an ounce of self-doubt. “We go out to do our best in every game.
“But I think people will look at our last campaign. They will see we had a good performance in Germany, we had good results and displays home and away against Manchester City. They will look at the result against Astana the other night and the way we have played in the other qualifying games.
“I think a lot of teams won’t want to get us from pot four. We need to make sure we are up for it no matter what teams we get and I am sure we will be. The aim is to take it one step forward.
“We all know the big teams are there. When you play Champions League you know you are going to face the best teams and the best players in the world. We want to be part of it.
“But we also want to take it one step further than last season. We want to compete for second place, maybe third place and the Europa League. We want to be playing European football after Christmas. We have the squad that is capable so hopefully we can do it.”
Celtic are through. Honest. More than one supporter of a certain age has been heard over the past week to mutter “aye, it would be just like us to mess this up” but Astana don’t have it in them to cause such an upset.
In saying all that, there remains a job to be done. Give the men from Kazakhstan an early goal and they might, just might, throw everything at Celtic in the hope of something truly strange happening.
Bitton said: “We couldn’t have asked for a better result, but we are still going to Astana to win the game. People keep telling me it will be easy – but everyone remembers PSG against Barcelona last season. That showed that anything can happen in football. We don’t want to be in that kind of situation. We want to go out and win the match.”
Ah, but what about last season when Celtic were three goals to the good against Hapoel Be’er Sheva and by the end of the return in Israel were simultaneously hanging on and looking at the clock.
“Last season was different,” insisted Bitton. “The two away goals gave Be’er Sheva a lot of confidence going into the second leg, even though we had a lead. Conceding the early goal was not a good start. They missed the penalty but scored early in the second half. It was a very nervy 40 minutes.
“It’s a little different this time. We have this five-goal cushion and a clean sheet. But we don’t want to think about losing the game. We want to win and go into the Champions League with confidence.”
Celtic can only mess this up for themselves now. No team loses a 5-0 first-leg lead and while Astana may show up better than last week in Glasgow, the gap in class was there for all to see.
“No one expected us to beat Astana 5-0. It was an amazing result for us to take away from home,” said Bitton. “It’s only when the game finished, you go home and relax and then think, ‘wow, we did it, we are 80 percent in the Champions League now’.
“But it’s not 100 percent done yet. We have to go away to a tough place. There’s the astroturf, the heat, there’s the journey. We must make sure we are not sloppy and don’t concede any goals. We don’t want to put ourselves under any unnecessary pressure.
“There is no need for drama. It’s about calming the game down. You could say a boring game would be good, but at the same time, we always go out to win games and this will be no different.
“Astana will have to attack, but we have great speed on the counter. We have strikers and attackers who can finish the game off.
“We showed it against Rosenborg, when they came out and the game opened up, we were able to use the space really well, with the likes of James Forrest, Scott Sinclair and Leigh Griffiths when he came on.
“Astana tried to play football as well and we managed to use the space in between them to finish the game off. It’s good we have been there before as we know what to expect. We’re getting experienced. We played Beer Sheva where it was so hot, it was the same in Kazakhstan.
“We are ready. We know what we are facing and what we want to do. It will be difficult but we are positive."
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