Celtic’s Champions League match in Kazakhstan next Tuesday is worth an estimated £40million to the club but Cameron Carter-Vickers insists focus is only on the field.
Hoops fans, frustrated by a lack of transfer activity in recent weeks, chanted ‘sack the board’ during and after the goalless draw against Kairat Almaty in the first leg of the play-off at Parkhead on Wednesday night.
The Scottish champions face a 7000-mile round trip for the return game where the riches of league-phase football in Europe’s elite club competition awaits the winners.
The USA defender insists he was too focused on the game to note Celtic fans’ discontent – “I don’t hear much when I am on the pitch” – but on the financial prize available in Kazakhstan in what will be a multi-million pound shootout, he said: “You’re right, it is that but as a squad we are pretty good at blocking that out.
“It’s a football match at the end of the day and we have all played plenty of football matches and you have to go out there and perform.
“We didn’t play particularly well, but I think we were still in a fair amount of control in the game and I think we can have that control again next week.
“Our chances will come and hopefully we’ll take them.
“We knew it wasn’t good enough in the first half but the second half was better. I’m not sure it was down to a lack of intensity or maybe we were in too much of a rush to do things.
“Sometimes in these games you have to be patient, keep the ball, move teams side to side and it might be on the third or fourth switch that one of their players switches off and a gap appears.
“Like I said, in the first half we were in too much of a rush to go down one side and either create something or give it away.
“In the second half we got the ball to areas we wanted to get to fairly well, it was just that quality and creativity in the final third to create chances and score goals that was missing, but we are confident that we have that within the squad and hopefully we will show that next week.
“You always want to win the first leg, especially at home, but it’s a two-legged tie for a reason.
“If we had won we would still have had to go there and perform and play well to go through, so nothing really changes.”
