‘Nothing really changes,’ CCV – We need to go there, play well and win

That result means that Celtic face a 7000 mile round trip to Almaty for the second leg which will be played in temperatures much hotter than Glasgow and with a prize of around £40m at stake.

Celtic’s ‘Big Strong Man’

Celtic’s ‘Big Strong Man’ explained how he blocks out outside noise during matches so was unaware of the Celtic supporters chanting ‘Sack the Board’.  “I don’t hear much when I am on the pitch” CCV said as reported by STV.  CCV did however concede that he’s well aware of the prize that will be dished out to the winners after the playoff is settled on Tuesday.

You’re right, it is that but as a squad we are pretty good at blocking that out,” Carter-Vickers explained. “It’s a football match at the end of the day and we have all played plenty of football matches and you have to go out there and perform.

“We didn’t play particularly well”

“We didn’t play particularly well, but I think we were still in a fair amount of control in the game and I think we can have that control again next week. Our chances will come and hopefully we’ll take them.” the USA international defender said.

Looking back at the frustrating match at Parkhead last night, CCV accepted that the Celtic performance just wasn’t good enough to get the win to take into the second leg.  “We knew it wasn’t good enough in the first half but the second half was better. I’m not sure it was down to a lack of intensity or maybe we were in too much of a rush to do things.

“Sometimes in these games you have to be patient, keep the ball, move teams side to side and it might be on the third or fourth switch that one of their players switches off and a gap appears. Like I said, in the first half we were in too much of a rush to go down one side and either create something or give it away.

“It was just that quality and creativity in the final third to create chances and score goals that was missing”

“In the second half we got the ball to areas we wanted to get to fairly well, it was just that quality and creativity in the final third to create chances and score goals that was missing, but we are confident that we have that within the squad and hopefully we will show that next week.

“You always want to win the first leg, especially at home, but it’s a two-legged tie for a reason. If we had won we would still have had to go there and perform and play well to go through, so nothing really changes.”

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