AEK Athens head coach Marinos Ouzounidis is confident his side can take advantage of Celtic’s defensive problems when the sides face off in the second leg of their Champions League qualifier in Athens tonight.

Having watched his side score in Glasgow last week to secure a 1-1 draw, the Greek coach thinks that his team can once again exploit the heart of Celtic’s backline, which will be manned by Jack Hendry and Jozo Simunovic with Kristoffer Ajer suspended and Dedryck Boyata absent as his dispute with the club continues.

Ouzounidis felt that Celtic looked tired in their loss to Hearts on Saturday, and he thinks his frontmen can exploit the wilting Parkhead side if they can turn up the pressure in the heat of the Olympic Stadium.

“We saw in the first match that if we exercise some pressure quite high then this might create some issues for their defending line,” Ouzounidis said.

“However, it’s quite reasonable when you have a top club, a great club, with defenders like them they don’t just want to clear the ball away they want to play safe and keep the ball down and build the play.

“As far as I’m concerned, I know Celtic is a top club, a major club, a very important club, which means all the players featuring in their roster are of great quality. No matter who plays we know they will deliver given that they have different qualities, different skills. It’s the same with Simunovic or anyone else who will be selected to play tomorrow.

“I watched their match against Hearts. They did have some issues, but this probably wasn’t just a result of their defensive performance. It wasn’t just the fault of the defensive line, it was the whole team that was a bit, maybe, tired. They didn’t have the freshness that we actually experienced in our own encounter.”

Ouzounidis says that all of the pressure is on Celtic ahead of tonight’s second leg, but he doesn’t feel the off-field issues that have beset the club over the past week will have a bearing on the outcome of the encounter.

“Yes, there might be some issues within the club, but we are talking about a Champions League match and this means that all these issues are of minor importance.

“Celtic’s manager is a great personality. He was a great coach in the Premier League. I have been analysing and scouting the opponents and I have seen that he has been able to build and create some beautiful stuff inside the team.

“Both the coach and the Celtic players will put aside all these issues because they have a major challenge ahead of them, qualifying. This is what is important and as far as I can tell they will not be affected at all in order to 100 per cent concentrate on the match.”

AEK are likely to once again be without captain Petros Mantalos, who is struggling to recover from a knock sustained in training in the lead-up to the first leg.

“Most likely he will be in the squad, given that he is also the captain of the team,” said Ouzounidis. “However, I don’t know yet if he will be available to perform in the match.”

Meanwhile, AEK right-back Michalis Bakakis has vowed that he is ready for the challenge of facing up to Kieran Tierney, after the Celtic full-back gave him a torrid time in the first leg in Glasgow. “He’s a great player, young but very quick,” said Bakakis.

“But we’ve done our homework on all the Celtic players. We have the players who can cope with their threat.”