Sports Blog 02/08/2017: UEFA Champions League 3rd Round Qualifying – Rosenborg vs Celtic, Wednesday 2nd August 2017

With a busy week ahead can Celtic ensure safe passage to the Champions League play-offs by seeing off Rosenborg?

The Bhoys certainly don’t have an easy start to the season. Hot on the heels of Wednesday’s crucial trip to Trondheim is Saturday’s Scottish Premiership curtain-raiser against Hearts. If that wasn’t enough, next Tuesday sees Celtic take on Kilmarnock in the 2nd round of the Scottish League Cup, cramming 3 pretty important games in the space of 6 days.



It doesn’t help that Celtic have let it all to do in the 2nd leg against Rosenborg after producing a snore draw at home. Part of that pallid performance can be explained by the absence of both Leigh Griffith and Moussa Dembele, who between them scored 50 goals last season. Meanwhile Scott Sinclair, who nabbed 25 goals in 2016/17, might as well have joined them given how little impact he made.

Dembele is still out – and likely won’t be back until September – but Griffith should make an appearance, heading into the 2nd leg at a Super Mega PGM spread of 22-27. Despite last week’s limp showing Sinclair has his teammate beat, with a spread of 24-29.

Though you’d be forgiven for not knowing anything about Celtic’s opponents – they were winners of the 2016 Tippeligaen by 15 points – Rosenborg are spearheaded by a recognisable face: Nicklas Bendtner. The former Arsenal (and Birmingham; and Sunderland; and, somehow, Juventus) forward joined the Norwegian champs from Nottingham Forrest in March, just in time for the start of the newly named 2017 Eliteserien season.

As has tended to be the case throughout his career, Bendtner hasn’t made too much of an impact at Rosenborg, scoring just 6 times in 21 appearances. Instead the Troillongan have become more reliant on their Icelandic striker Matthias Vilhjalmsson, who outstrips Bendtner with 15 goals in 22 games. Nevertheless the Dane has a better Super Mega PGM spread than his teammate, at 21-26 to 13-17.

Europe hasn’t really been Brendan Rodgers’ strong suit since he made his way to Scotland (who can forget his loss to the Lincoln Red Imps at the start of last season), explaining why Spreadex are offering a tight Celtic/Rosenborg (h) Goal Supremacy spread of 0.1-0.3 alongside a Total Goals spread of 2.45-2.65.