Celtic have been given a morale-boosting compliment from Shakhtar Donetsk ahead of their Champions League double header against RB Leipzig.
Shakhtar manager Igor Jovicevic was full of praise for Celtic before and after Wednesday night’s 1-1 draw in Warsaw and one of his players revealed they had been warned they faced a step up in class against the Scottish champions.
Donetsk beat Leipzig 4-1 in Germany in their opening game but rode their luck against the Hoops, who missed a series of second-half chances after being pegged back against the run of play around the half-hour mark.
Shakhtar defender Valeriy Bondar told his club’s official website: “I got a great impression of our opponents.
“We completely understood that the match was going to be tough and we prepared specifically for the meeting with Celtic.
“The coach emphasised that it would be more difficult than it was against RB Leipzig. Currently, this club is better than RB Leipzig, so we were very scrupulous about the game and did our best on the field. We did everything to win and to entertain our fans.”
Leipzig are under new management since losing to the Ukrainian side and showed improvement against Real Madrid, holding the European champions until the 80th minute in Spain before going down to a 2-0 defeat.
Recently-appointed manager Marco Rose claimed his side deserved more in the Bernabeu and Celtic will know they have to be more clinical in Germany on October 5 if they are to get their first win of the Group F campaign, having also squandered several opportunities during their opening defeat by holders Real.
Celtic midfielder Aaron Mooy said: “We created good chances and we have just got to put them away. There’s not much more to say than that.
“We are disappointed that we didn’t get more from the game but we will take a point and move on to the next game and take the positives.”
