CHRIS Davies, the Celtic assistant manager, believes the Parkhead club will be better placed to qualify for the group stages of the Champions League next season than they were last year.
However, Davies has stressed it will still be difficult for Brendan Rodgers’s team to clinch a lucrative spot in Europe’s premier club competition proper in the 2017/18 campaign.
The Glasgow club booked their place alongside the continent’s elite for the first time in three years with a nail-biting 5-4 win over Hapoel Be’er Sheva of Israel back in August.
That result was worth in excess of £30 million to Celtic – who were drawn to play Barcelona, Borussia Moenchengladbach and Manchester City in Group C.
Davies is hopeful that having had 12 months to work with the players will help the Scottish champions to negotiate the treacherous fixtures – the first of which will be played on July 11 or 12 – successfully.
“It’s a lot better for us – we have more time,” he said. “We weren’t able to organise pre-season exactly how we would want it. Logistically, you have to get that right as you are into big games right away. We’ve picked pre-season and the manager can mould that.
“We went into Lincoln Red Imps away last season with a team that we didn’t know that well. We were still learning about the squad. We hadn’t had a pre-season as we were straight into it.
“This season the players all know our ideas and how to work. We know the systems we can play and we will be in a better place for the qualifiers this year.
“But that’s not to say they will be easy because they will be tough and whatever happens getting through the three rounds is a challenge. You have to accept that you must deliver big performances in qualification games, but we’ll be more ready.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel