JO INGE BERGET. A man who proves previous players come back to bite you, even when most have seen little to suggest he had it in him.

However - and I have witnesses to this - I wasn’t one of them. Ahead of Celtic’s Champions League play-off first leg with Malmo on Wednesday night, I was in our production truck outside Parkhead with my BT sport colleagues Chris Sutton, John Hartson and Johan Mjallby, and we were talking about how more often than not familiar faces can cause you grief.

You go back through history and the name Harald Brattbakk came to mind when I thought of Norwegian players who were not successful here but had returned to haunt the Hoops. He did that for Rosenborg against Celtic in the Champions League in 2001 and scored a couple of goals.

The lads all listened to me and said ‘oh you’ll see’. I had a funny feeling Berget, who was of course on loan at Celtic last year, would be key in the drama. I didn’t predict he’d score twice but I thought his name would be up there in lights.

You can never judge a player on a few games, and he only made eight appearances in green and white where he looked a bit of a square peg in a round hole. At Malmo, though he is joint top scorer in the league with seven goals, and that’s not even as a striker.

Players like that can be highly motivated with a point to prove, and we saw that on Wednesday with both his goals, especially the one in the dying seconds.

There is a massive difference between 3-1 and 3-2. I believe with that score, even though Celtic are technically at an advantage, Malmo are marginal favourites. Think about it the other way around if the Scottish side were retuning with the same scoreline to Parkhead for the second leg.

I’ll be over in Sweden for the game which is exclusively live on BT Sport, and yes I think Celtic can still do it. It’s not going to be easy but it was never going to be. It will take the best performance they have produced in qualifying and for some time. They will need to dig and defend intelligently.

They did that in Azerbaijan against Qarabag. I don’t think t there is a massive jump in quality between the two but going forward Malmo are better. It’s about cutting out the mistakes. That’s why it is 3-2.

It was a kaleidoscope of shifting emotions on Wednesday. You did wonder if Celtic could kill them off, but it’s never that easy. Malmo are not Swedish champions for nothing. This second leg is going to be a great spectacle and is hanging in the balance.

I always said it was one of the more difficult ones they could have got. It’s going to take a performance of real tactical discipline. My feeling is Celtic will need a goal. Malmo have goals in them.

As I said earlier, I do think the Swedes are slight favourites but that may not be the worst thing if they are a bit over confident.

I have a feeling the Parkhead players remember what happened against Maribor last year and they won’t want to live that again. The ironic thing is Berget played in that game!

Because Celtic conceded that late goal people are focusing on that. They still took a two-goal lead twice and they have enough talent to get through this, but the mistakes must be cut out, or Celtic will be punished again.

ends

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