ANDERLECHT fancy their chances of achieving the three-goal margin of victory which they would require against Celtic in Glasgow on Tuesday night to book a Europa League place at the Parkhead side’s expense.
That is the studied opinion of Dedryk Boyata, the Parkhead side’s Belgian international defender, who has been following developments back home closely.
The Belgian champions, routed 3-0 on their own turf by Brendan Rodgers’ side earlier in the campaign, won 2-1 at Lokeren on Saturday as they continued their improving recent form under new manager Hein Vanhaezebrouck.
Read more: Celtic's Kieran Tierney: I can hold my head high in the streets of hometown Motherwell now
As difficult an assignment as it seems to record a 3-0 victory in the East End of Glasgow, Boyata feels his countrymen have far from given up hope.
“Journalists in Belgium have been contacting me to have a word about this game because it’s a shoot-out,” said Boyata. “It’s an important game for both clubs and they definitely haven’t given up on it. They’ve said that if we can win 3-0 over there then they can do the same here.
“Since they got their new manager they’ve been doing better than they were when we played them the first time," he added. "So it will be a difficult game for us but I refuse to think about us losing to them. That would ruin Christmas – in fact, it would ruin everything!”
It can be awkward to play a match where something in the back of your mind is ramming home the imperatives of not losing, rather than winning, but Boyata is confident that Rodgers will come up with the correct formula. The Northern Irishman is uniformly positive and you would imagine that he will send out an attacking team determined to win the match on the night and get the 7-1 rout in Paris out of the system entirely.
“I won’t say how we’re going to play against Anderlecht,” said Boyata. “But we know the manager always makes the right decisions tactically. He’s sent members of staff to go and watch them so we’ll know what we have to do on the night.
Read more: Celtic's Kieran Tierney: I can hold my head high in the streets of hometown Motherwell now
"It could help us that they need to come and attack," he added. "We don’t get much of that in the Premiership but the Champions League is different because the teams are quicker and sharper.
"So this game could be very open because they have to win and they have to score goals. You learn from mistakes in games [like Paris] because you’re coming up against very good players. But you don’t sleep well after a defeat like that. It’s vital we bounce back from that.”
This week saw Boyata’s Belgium placed in a World Cup group which includes England. He paid tribute to the support he had received from manager Roberto Martinez and his assistant manager Graeme Jones, both of whom have previously worked in Scotland. “They’ve been very helpful to me,” said Boyata. “I didn’t know them at all until they got the job but since then everything has been really positive. I’ve been trying to improve in the ways that they want me to and I appreciate the encouragement they give me. Roberto told me that he had played for Motherwell and I didn’t know that. Graham told me that most people didn’t realise how hard it is to play in Celtic-Rangers derbies but they did because they’d seen them.”
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