FC Astana defeated Scottish Premiership giants Celtic in the second leg of the Champions League qualifiers as they secured a nail-biting 4-3 win over Brendan Rodgers’ men. Although Stanimir Stoilov guided his men to a win, his outfit had to bow out of the competition owing to their humiliating 5-0 defeat in the first leg at the Celtic Park which led to the progress of the Hoops into the group stages as 4-8 was the aggregate score line.
Here are three points which were derived from the fixture:
- Nir Bitton Isn’t A Centre-Back
Bitton, although being a central defensive midfielder, has been handed the responsibility of catering to the centre back role by Rodgers this season owing to the absence of Dedryck Boyata and Erik Sviatchenko. However, he has been far from producing commendable outings and his outing against the Kazakhstan based outfit went horribly wrong.
The 25-year-old looked timorous throughout the game and failed to meet his man-marking duties. He was poor in distributing the ball, didn’t really do enough to break the attacking endeavours coming from the home side and was responsible for leaking the third and fourth goal, both of which were scored by Patrick Twamasi, against whom he struggled to cope up with.
- Sinclair and Ntcham Were The Silver Linings
Olivier Ntcham, the newcomer in the ranks of the Bhoys, was arguably the best Celtic player during the game. The Frenchman was absolutely ruthless with his killer passes from the deep, orchestrated the midfield in a scintillating manner and imposed himself as a physically strong figure in the middle.
In a similar manner, Sinclair erected his footing as the torchbearer of the offensive surges of the Glasgow giants. He constantly inclined himself to bang goals and create chances for his teammates and looked like a livewire in the final third.
- Astana Should Have Done More In The First Half
With a 5-0 lead from the first leg, Celtic’s progress to the group stages was almost certain. But credit where it is due, the Blue and Yellows were the better side and eventually won the particular game, but they could have caused an upset by paving their way beyond the play-offs it they had taken their chances in a better manner during the first half.
Marin Tomasov and Twamasi, who were engineered on the flanks, supported Junior Kabananga, who was the lone striker up front, quite well. They appeared very passive and deterred in the first half, but came out in the second half as a different side entirely.
