Gary Lineker reacts to ‘exciting’ Celtic and shares how far he thinks they can go in Champions League.
Micah Richards and Gary Lineker have both commented on Celtic’s thrilling Champions League rout of Slovan Bratislava.
And the well-known BBC presenter and former England striker revealed whether he believes Celtic can at least make it to the knockout play-off stage.
The Hoops destroyed the Slovakian champions on Wednesday night in front of a boisterous crowd at Parkhead thanks to five different Celtic scorers.
Following matchday one, Celtic is ranked second in the Champions League league phase, and many pundits have been praising the Scottish Premiership winners.
Following the crushing victory, Richards had already praised Celtic striker Kyogo; however, co-host of The Rest is Football podcast Gary Lineker has now added a comment.
Lineker on ‘brilliant’ Celtic win
During the most recent episode of the podcast that reviewed the Champions League, Lineker stated: “When we talk about amazing and thrilling football, how about Celtic scoring five goals?
“You would say that they will now face teams that they can defeat, and I would guess that they will be among the favorites to make it to the (knockout) round this year.
“Let me remind everyone that the teams ranked eighth through twenty-fourth will compete in play-off games to advance to the final sixteen of the Champions League to join the top eight.”
It will be intriguing to observe, then. With this format, I believe we should wait and see how things work out. There is more football for the players, which is the only drawback to that.
However, afantastic victory for Celtic and a
Micah Richards agrees with Lineker on Celtic
Micah Richards started his own analysis by talking about how Celtic had historically performed poorly in the Champions League group stage.
With due respect to Celtic, the former Manchester City defender stated: “You know what, everyone talks about this new Champions League format and maybe in one of the later (group stage) rounds, they might have had an opportunity to win a game in previous years and recent history.”
“Even though it wasn’t the best game ever, it was more of a showpiece. Can we qualify for the Europa League by placing third?
Richards did, however, concede to Lineker’s point that Celtic will find it simpler to advance through the competition under the new format.
Leave a Reply