UEFA Europa League : Hapoel Beer Sheva- Southampton
Southampton played at West Ham last Sunday and feel that three games inside eight days and a long trip to Israel and back on Thursday is a tough ask and they have clearly prioritised the weekend game with Leicester City (who have 48 hours longer recovery time).Saints are already without injured duo Jay Rodriguez and Sofiane Boufal and have decided to rest much admired captain and central defender Jose Fonte, striker Charlie Austin, defender Ryan Bertrand and midfielder Steven Davis and all have remained in the UK. The visitors already have three group points on board and will, you suspect, try to manage their Europa League group campaign in order to impact league games as little as possible and it is very demanding for English teams with no easy Premier League fixtures.
I spoke about
Hapoel Beer Sheva ahead of their Champions League home game with Celtic .............
Celtic won the first leg 5-2 and looked out of sight at one stage at 3-0 early in that tie and on another night could have won by five, however and equally, they could have crumbled at 3-2 and again when the Israeli side were denied a penalty later in the game. We have seen them do so before and Brendan Rodgers, the head coach of the Scottish champions, said yesterday that those involved in last season's surrender to Malmo at this stage of the competition will not be unnerved by that disappointment. Adding:"I think a lot has been made of what's happened in the past and I've always said you have to embrace failure." He spent half the interview talking about this and for me,the loss in Sweden, and some other big collapses in the Champions League in recent campaigns, are clearly playing on his mind .
I think that this will be a very different game, Celtic were very fortunate not to lose at Astana, where they fought a rearguard action for most of the 90 minutes and they have won just 9 of 62 , including 2 of their last 14, away starts in Europe and have kept just two clean sheets in the last 20 ( in Azerbaijan and Iceland).Hapoel Beer Sheva have great confidence from their first domestic title in 40 years last season and head coach Barak Bakhar feels there is still life in this and rested key players for tonight in their league opener on Saturday.
HBS are a special team and have very much a them against us mentality domestically, Beersheba being in the "wilderness " of the South and their title win last season was described as "doing a Leicester City", which is a phrase we are going to hear far too much of ! To get some feel of where this team are and where they have come from, there was an interesting article on the Guardian website, which was reproduced from The Blizzard. Celtic can lose by 2 and still progress and I think they will look to keep this tight, which they are ill equipped and unused to doing and I expect the host to edge this narrowly and both teams to celebrate come the end of 90 minutes. The visitors also conceded two goals quickly from three up against St Johnstone at the weekend and sitting on a lead is not their forte.
HBS won that 2-0 and were very close to turning that tie around, they are on a steep learning curve in Europe, but are enjoying the ride and got the attention of the footballing world with a 2-0 road win at Internazionale on Matchday 1 and few teams are going to relish a trip here. I feel Southampton would take a point now and getting Hapoel, for whom this game will be a very big deal indeed, with a handicap start, looks too good to pass.
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Good Luck.
