Sky Sports pundit Charlie Nicholas believes that Celtic will cause Bayern Munich problems when they welcome the Bundesliga champions to Glasgow for their Champions League tie on Tuesday evening.
The former Hoops man has predicted that Brendan Rodgers’ men will lose 2-1 on the night but he is convinced that it will be a tight affair.
Celtic were completely outclassed when the two sides met a fortnight ago in the Allianz Arena with Bayern picking up all three points in a 3-0 victory.
The SPL champions now face an uphill task in qualifying for the knockout stages as they travel Bayern by three points and group toppers Paris-Saint Germain by six.
Celtic prepared for the huge European tie with a disappointing 1-1 draw against Kilmarnock on the weekend but a number of first-team regulars were rested with the Bayern game in mind.
Expressing his thoughts on the Sky Sports website, Nicholas is confident that Celtic can take the game to th visitors due to the number of key players missing.
“Celtic don’t have the players to sit in and defend so the concern is, as always in Europe, that they’ll come out and get picked off,” he wrote.
“However, Thomas Muller and Robert Lewandowski being ruled out is a leveller and it says it all that we’re scratching around to work out who will lead the line.
“I suspect it could be Kingsley Coman and I suspect it could be a narrow heartbreak for Celtic.”
OPINION
Celtic will rarely have a better opportunity to beat Bayern. The German side are missing important attacking players and if the Hoops have any chance of progression through the group, they must make the most of this advantage and capitalise. It will be a tough task but with the Celtic Park crowd behind them, anything is possible on Tuesday night. There are no excuses for the likes of Scott Sinclair, Stuart Armstrong and Moussa Dembele who started on the bench for this past weekend’s fixture. However, taking all of this into consideration, we also feel that Bayern will come away with the victory but if Celtic manage to score the first goal then a shock might be on the cards.