Brendan Rodgers comment pricks Jim Goodwin's ears up as Dundee Utd turn to Bayern blueprint to stun Celtic
Dundee United boss Jim Goodwin admitted he has analysed the Bayern blueprint in a bid to try and get a result at Celtic Park.
The United boss will take his third-placed team to Parkhead this weekend, sandwiched between their two Champions League games with Bayern Munich. Goodwin watched Vincent Kompany’s side win the first leg 2-1 and admitted he scrutinised the gameplay of the Bundeliga giants to see if there is anything he could use to United’s advantage.
Goodwin said: “I thought they did great to stay in the game because Bayern are a really good side. obviously. It was an interesting game, you can learn a lot from how other teams, top teams like that play against Celtic and how they try and stop them. We've analysed that this morning after training today, so you can always take ideas from games like that. Celtic are still in the tie, so it'll be interesting to see what their selection looks like at the beginning.”
The Celtic supporters might have one eye on Munich next week but Goodwin knows that won’t be the case for Brendan Rodgers and his stars. He stated: “When you're at a club like Celtic you play a lot of games because you're involved in every competition domestically, more often than not going far in each competition and obviously now in the Champions League they're doing great to get to this stage and to be still in the tie after one game, credit to them.
“A lot of those boys have played a hell of a lot of football. I listened to Brendan's pre-match and post-match comments regarding certain individuals. So I would expect there to be some changes from that starting XI last night, but at the same time it's not weakening their team in my opinion because they've got a very, very good strong squad full of international quality players.”
United did take points off Celtic at Tannadice last time out and narrowly lost at Celtic Park - although their manager reckoned that was self-inflicted.
He claimed: “Our games with them have been very close and our approach to the game is not going to be much different from the previous two fixtures to be honest.
“We're going to try and impose ourselves on them and be aggressive when we can be. But the balance needs to be right and the shape behind the ball needs to be really, really good if you're going to take anything like we did at Tannadice a few months back.
“We know what to expect, a top quality team, regardless of the changes that they make, they'll still be very strong.
“We will get chances, I believe, obviously maybe limited in terms of what we would normally expect and when you get those big chances you've got to punish. At the same time, you need to be switched on defensively.”
United midfielder Richard Odada has a number of European options and could go out on-loan over the next 24 hours.
