JOE LEDLEY aims to draw on bitter experience as inspiration ahead of tomorrow's Champions League play off with Shakhter Karagandy.

Just like the Kazakhstan side, Celtic were 2-0 up from the home leg of their Europa League play-off tie with Dutch side Utrecht in the Welshman's first season at Parkhead.

It was Neil Lennon's debut campaign as a manager and they had already lost their Champions League qualifier to Braga.

Ledley and Co headed to Holland confident they had built a platform to reach the group stages of the Europa League.

But Utrecht hit them early - and hard - and won the second leg 4-0.

Three years down the line the pain of that reversal is still raw.

And Ledley believes it is just further evidence of what can happen in such a tie.

He said: "What happened to us against Utrecht shows it's possible to come back from two goals down.

"Hopefully, now we can do to Shakhter what Utrecht did to us.

"We have scored a lot of goals at Parkhead in my time here and we will go out and attack them straight from the off."

Ledley wants to test the nerve of Shakhter, who have never been so close to claiming a place in the Champions League group stages.

As the bottom-ranked side in the draw, they were given little chance when paired with Celtic.

But, as the first leg in Astana showed, seedings and odds count for nothing when the whistle blows.

"I know a lot of people wrote off Shakhter before we played them last week, but we didn't," Ledley explained.

"We had watched highlights of their previous games and knew they were going to be a good team.

"They defend well as unit and are dangerous at set-plays. They proved that against us. But we were not caught unaware and neither were we over-confident."

Before hitting the net twice against Celtic in the play-off, Shakhter had scored in all four of their qualifying ties, beating BATE Borisov 1-0 in both legs, then defeating Skenderbeu 3-0 at home before getting through after a 3-2 defeat in Alabania.

They have come here looking to get another vital away goal - and Ledley knows Celtic must be on their guard.

He said: "They do have something about them. But hopefully having to travel this far, and the time difference which they now have to adjust to, will not be good for them.

"We aim to come on strong and attack from the off. We know we're not in a very good situation after the first leg."