Jablonec boss Petr Rada has insisted that Celtic are a better side now than they were last season.
Similarly to Celtic, the Czech side didn’t make the best of their preparation ahead of Thursday’s tie, losing out 3-0 against Mlada Boleslav.
However, as quoted by the Daily Record, Rada insisted that his side cannot afford to put in that level of performance on Thursday against this Celtic side, who he believes is already better than last campaign.
“I’m very angry with the players. They can’t say they weren’t prepared. I went to watch Mlada Boleslav personally a week ago and they were armed with first-hand information.
“It was the worst possible preparation for the match against Celtic.
“My assistant manager, Zdenek Klucky, watched Celtic’s games against FC Midtjylland.
“He told me they have a much stronger team than last season, even though they also went out of the Champions League last season too.
“We have to forget about this performance.
“It’s a different opponent and a different competition, so we have to concentrate on Celtic and give a completely different performance.
“When we play Celtic, we cannot afford to make the same stupid mistakes we made here. There was a lack of movement and we were poor everywhere.
“We lost deservedly and this must not be repeated against Celtic or else we are going out.”
With the results in the past weeks, fans optimism has dropped a little.
Despite seeing some good signs from Ange Postecoglou and his side, they haven’t been given enough backing to succeed just yet.
That has shown with the last two results against both Midtjylland and Hearts.
The reason we are currently in this mess is because of last season. So going into this campaign, fans would have hoped to have seen an improvement on the team.
Of course, over time, we should get better with more improvements and additions to the squad. But it is time to bring them in now rather than play the waiting game.
