As Shakhtar have lived a nomadic existence since 2014 this “home” game will be played at the Stadion Wojska Polskiego, home of Polish side Legia Warsaw. While both sides still sport an unbeaten start to their domestic seasons, things aren’t going how they planned for Celtic in the Champions League, so they’ll need all the help they can get as they’ve only kept one clean sheet across their 33 UCL away games (W2, D3,L28).
Shakhtar’s opener was the 1-4 destruction of RB Leipzig and with that they’ve already bettered last seasons winless campaign (D2, L4) and with that hopes are rising for Shakhtar to end a run of 4 straight group stage eliminations. Those expectations fall onto the shoulders of former Celtic forward Marian Shved who has 3 goals in his previous 2 appearances.
Having been drawn in the group stages twice before back in 2004 & 2007 we can see that this tie heavily favours the home side as the results have gone that way in all 4 fixtures. Starting with a 3-0 home win for Shakhtar and the Celtic winning the return leg 1-0 but both sides were eliminated, and they met again 3 years later but this time Celtic progressed to the knockout stages, initially losing 2-0 away but winning the return leg 2-1 to finish 2nd with 9 points pipping Benfica to the post.
Key stats
- Shakhtar are unbeaten in their last 5 games
- Shakhtar 50% BTTS over last 20 matches
- Celtic 50% BTTS over last 20 matches
