Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers has hinted he will hand some players Champions League auditions as they close an unsuccessful campaign against Feyenoord.
Celtic have one point from five games and a 2-0 defeat against Lazio last time out consigned them to bottom spot and the Dutch champions to third place in Group E.
Rodgers has handed rare starts to Tomoki Iwata, Mikey Johnston and Oh Hyeon-gyu in the past two domestic games and he will partly use Wednesday’s match to continue assessing his January transfer window needs.
Rodgers, who will again be without Cameron Carter-Vickers and Daizen Maeda, said: “Because of the situation we have with injuries and with all the games, it will give the opportunity for players to play.
“When we reach January, a lot of the players in the squad will have the opportunity to play games and play games through all the levels, and then can be assessed from there.
“But whatever team we put out, we are putting a team out always to win at Celtic. There’s no gifts, there’s no free games.
“Every game is to win and, even though disappointingly we won’t have anything in Europe after Christmas, we are still playing for pride here and the support. So we will have a team looking to fight for the result.
“It’s our last game here in the competition and we want to give the supporters something to go home happy with.
“Our attitude is exactly the same, to go and look to win the game. And we do that by playing our way. I think we showed at the weekend, once we divert from that, we don’t have the same qualities and it’s not our strength. Our strength is to play the way we want to play.”
Rodgers felt his side deviated from their positive passing game as they lost a half-time lead at Kilmarnock to suffer their first cinch Premiership defeat of the season.
“The value of the game at the weekend is we know what the issues were,” he said.
“In the St Johnstone game, the intensity wasn’t right and we fixed that. Sunday for us, when we analysed the game, we didn’t play with the poise that we need to play with in the second half.
“But at least we see that and we can take that learning into the game on Wednesday.”
Celtic have now gone 15 Champions League group games without victory, a run stretching back to Rodgers’ first spell in charge.
But the manager dismissed the long-term significance of getting a morale-boosting win ahead of next season’s European campaign.
“It’s still such a long way to go,” he said. “And probably, come this time next year, the squad may look a lot different again.
“We can only focus on the present and for us it’s performing to the level we know we can consistently.
“We have done that in spells over the course of this competition and played some really high-level football and showed in those moments that we belong at the level. But you have to do that consistently.”
Carter-Vickers and Maeda trained on Tuesday and Rodgers hopes they can return from recent lay-offs when his side host Hearts in the league on Saturday.
Reo Hatate was training on his own after returning from Japan following the first part of his rehabilitation from a hamstring injury.
The midfielder does not look likely to return before the winter break.
Bristol City Women 0-4 Man City Women: Hosts relegated as Fowler double inspires WSL leaders
Mary Fowler scored twice to set WSL leaders Manchester City on their way to a 4-0 rout of Bristol City, who suffered relegation as a result, on Sunday.
With Arsenal having drawn with Everton earlier in the day, Man City knew a victory would be enough to take the title race down to two teams.
That victory duly arrived in emphatic fashion, with all four of Man City's goals arriving in the second half.
Fowler's fantastic strike opened the scoring in the 62nd minute, with the Australia international doubling her tally soon after, paving the way for an Amy Rodgers own goal and Alex Greenwood's late header to seal a huge victory.
Arsenal are now out of the title race, with Chelsea - who have two games in hand on Gareth Taylor's team - the only side capable of catching Man City.
The Robins, meanwhile, will be playing in the second tier again next term.
Data Debrief: Bristol heading down with a whimper
Bristol City have failed to score in their last five games in the WSL, a run of 544 minutes without a goal.
They mustered just 0.09 expected goals (xG) to Man City's 3.4, with the visitors having now kept a clean sheet in nine of their 20 league games this season.
De Rossi demands more from 'tired' Roma ahead of crunch run
Daniele De Rossi acknowledged his Roma team may be tired, but he insisted they must not allow themselves to be embarrassed.
Roma fought back to draw 2-2 with last season's Serie A champions Napoli in a pulsating fixture on Sunday.
Tammy Abraham's late header secured a point for De Rossi's team, who took the lead through Paulo Dybala's penalty before going behind to goals from Matias Olivera and Victor Osimhen.
With Serie A set to have five teams in the Champions League next season, Roma occupy fifth spot with four matches remaining, but sixth-placed Atalanta are just two points behind with a game in hand.
There is also the small matter of a Europa League semi-final against Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen on the cards over the coming weeks, and De Rossi set the stall out.
"We drew, it is not a result to throw away, but it is not the result or the performance that we wanted," Roma coach Daniele De Rossi told Sky Sports Italia.
"At times you can steal the ball off Napoli, but we then gave it back again too many times. Napoli had a lot of chances in the first half, we did better in the second, but we have to do better.
"Look, we are tired, but we cannot start thinking that we’re tired and that means we can be embarrassed in the final few weeks of the season."
Roma host Leverkusen on Thursday before taking on Juventus on May 5, with a crunch clash against Atalanta – who are also into the Europa League semi-finals – set to follow after the away leg against Xabi Alonso's team.
Key to a successful end to the campaign for Roma will be keeping Dybala fit. The Argentine has been involved in the joint-most goals (12) in Serie A since the turn of the year, scoring nine and setting up three, level with Juve's Dusan Vlahovic.
PSG's latest Ligue 1 title arrives as Monaco lose to Lyon
Paris Saint-Germain have been crowned as Ligue 1 champions after Lyon overcame Monaco 3-2 on Sunday.
A 4-1 midweek win over Lorient ensured that one more victory would be enough for Luis Enrique's team to get over the line, but PSG failed to get the job done themselves when they faced relegation-threatened Le Havre on Saturday.
That game was the 700th match of the QSI era at PSG, and the club's 1,900th in France's top flight.
However, PSG's wait to win their third straight title did not last long, as less than 24 hours later, Lyon – who will face the Parisians in the final of the Coupe de France at the end of May – came out on top in a topsy turvy encounter with second-placed Monaco.
Substitute Malick Fofana was the matchwinner for Lyon, and ultimately the player who handed the title to PSG.
Wissam Ben Yedder had put Monaco ahead in the opening minute, but quickfire goals from Alexandre Lacazette and Said Benrahma turned the match on its head before half-time.
Ben Yedder netted his second to restore parity on the hour mark, and thought he had sealed his hat-trick when he volleyed in from a free-kick, only to have strayed offside.
With only a win good enough for Monaco to stay in the fight, the visitors were then caught out in the 84th minute, with Fofana racing onto Lacazette's throughball and finishing calmly.
After a dismal start to the season, relegation looked a real possibility for Lyon, but they are now, with three games remaining, still in with a shout of qualifying for Europe.
PSG on the other hand now have 12 Ligue 1 titles to their name, with 10 of those coming under QSI's ownership. Aside from the COVID-impacted 2019-20 season, five of their last six league titles have been secured before the start of May.
It also means Luis Enrique remains in the running for a treble in his first season at the club, with PSG taking on Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League semi-finals next week.
SportsMax is the Caribbean sports channel of choice, committed to providing sporting content of the highest quality to the Caribbean, delivered by a team of highly innovative, passionate and qualified professionals.
(876) 619-7629
digitalmedia@sportsmax.tv
