Celtic
- The Hoops have finally settled down since Martin O’Neill’s appointment as interim manager last month.
- The Hoops are now unbeaten in 5 games with 3 wins and 2 ties following a recent 2-2 away draw at Bologna in the Europa League.
- The Celtic manager has also made tactical tweaks that have seemingly stabilised the club, who now sit on 8 points from 7 matches in the UEFA Europa League and can still make the cut.
FC Utrecht
- Despite having a few good ideas in terms of tactics and structure, Ron Jans has failed to get any results out of FC Utrecht recently as their form has declined.
- Utrecht have lost 4 consecutive matches, including a 0-2 home defeat to Racing Genk in the Europa League and a 0-1 home reverse to Sparta Rotterdam in the Eredivisie.
Key Players
- Reo Hatate is the club’s Europa League top scorer with 3 strikes from 7, but Benjamin Nygren’s 3 in 5 has been a great lift and Celtic are scoring enough to suggest they could get the win they need to secure their progress.
- The pressure is now mounting on the manager, although Miguel Rodriguez is his best chance of a goal with 2 Europa League goals so far, while Souffian El Karouani is making an impact with 2 assists in 7 continental games from full-back.
Betting Insights
Celtic are the heavy favorites for this game at 1.3 with Utrecht 9.7 and the tie at 5.0 .
Prediction
Both Teams to Score is on the table at 1.85 , but Utrecht haven’t been scoring many goals recently and we’re going to go with ‘Celtic to win and over 2.5 goals’ because the clash of Celtic’s suffocating pressing game against Utrecht’s more plan-driven approach should see the hosts dominate tempo and territory.
