Itten & Contini search for form as Young Boys visit Celtic

Champions League: Celtic v Young Boys

Venue: Celtic Park, Glasgow Date: Wednesday, 22 January Time: 20:00 GMT

With Celtic knowing one more win in the Champions League will almost certainly be enough to take them into the next phase of the competition, it would appear there could be no better visitors than Swiss side Young Boys.

The Berne club have been staggeringly bad this season, domestically as well as in Europe, and though Scots teams know better than to take anything for granted in continental competition, Young Boys will have to seriously up their game to take their first points of the campaign.

They come to Glasgow with the worst defensive record in the Champions League, conceding five to Barcelona and Stuttgart and six at home to Atalanta, having scored only three in their six games.

Young Boys have never won an away fixture in their four Champions League campaigns to date, mustering just two draws in 11 games.

Step forward Giorgio Contini, who has been enticed from his position as national assistant manager to Murat Yakin to replace interim boss Joel Magnin.

Magnin had actually stemmed the tide somewhat domestically, losing just two of 10 games and though they lie ninth in the incredibly competitive Super League, they are only eight points adrift of leaders Lugano. As an aside, the top six are separated by just two points at the midway point of the season.

An inauspicious 0-0 draw with bottom club Winterthur at the weekend hardly got Contini’s reign off to a blistering start as they try to climb the table in defence of the title they won by 12 points last season, a sixth in seven years and a 17th overall.

Contini has revealed he recently spent time watching legendary Real Madrid coach and five-time Champions League winner Carlo Ancelotti at close quarters, learning from his management style.

With the greatest of respect, it perhaps sums up where Young Boys are right now when you learn their top scorer is Cedric Itten, whose Rangers career never really took off, with just eight goals in his 48 appearances, though he can point to two victories over Celtic in the pair of brief appearances he made against them in Rangers’ title-winning campaign of 2020-21.

One of the issues for Itten and his team-mates looks to be the lack of a settled team as each manager has searched for a winning formula. Injuries have also not helped their cause.

So for Saturday’s game, Contini opted to play 22-year-old Marvin Keller in goal instead of stalwart David von Ballmoos, young French defender Tanguy Zoukrou returned from three months out injured to partner captain Loris Benito, who himself is not long back from a lengthy spell out while neither fullback – Jaouen Hadjam or Lewin Blum – has been a mainstay in the team.

To be fair, Filip Ugrinic in central midfield has started all but one this season and Lukasz Lakomy alongside him has been a regular since recovering from injury at the end of October.

Behind Itten, Darian Males and Joel Monteiro do offer a scoring threat as well as creativity while Ebrima Colley, who also got the nod at the weekend, is still to find a first goal since making last season’s loan move from Atalanta permanent.