Thursday 5 November 2015 19:47, UK
Charlie Nicholas provides us with his predictions for Thursday night's Europa League action after maintaining his hot tipping form in the Champions League.
The Soccer Saturday pundit correctly predicted three of the four results for English sides, including nailing Manchester United to win 1-0 against CSKA Moscow and Wayne Rooney to score first.
Here's what Charlie fancies for tonight's action…
Rubin Kazan v Liverpool
Well it's just great to see all the Liverpool players smiling and enjoying life again after one win! I must say it was a big win (against Chelsea) but they badly needed it because that momentum from Jurgen Klopp's appointment was falling off. It's going to take until next season before he really gets the cutting edge out of this team.
I've been saying it enough, he had to get Philippe Coutinho involved in the right areas, but I think Klopp will make quite a few changes for this one to freshen things up as it's a long trip and don't see Liverpool winning this one as.
In terms of a goalscorer, I still think Liverpool are poor at set-pieces despite the fact that they're working hard on them, so I'd back one of their centre-backs to score from one.
Charlie predicts: 2-1 (14/1 with Sky Bet)
Tottenham v Anderlecht
It's a big week for Spurs as they're just creeping under the radar for the top four and have the chance to catch up with Arsenal on Super Sunday.
What will Mauricio Pochettino do ahead of the big derby? Is that the priority for him? I think it probably is so he's challenged with the idea of who to rest. He won't want to drop Harry Kane because he's back on the goal trail but then again they won't want him to get injured because that would put Spurs in a really difficult position up front.
Anderlecht are an awkward side with a few decent players, most notably the young superstar Youri Tielemans, who is creating interest from Premier League sides and is being touted as the next Zinedine Zidane. They're always an attack-minded side so I think we'll have an open game.
Charlie predicts: 1-1 with Erik Lamela to score first (35/1 with Sky Bet)
Celtic v Molde
Anybody who watched the first leg can't be enthralled with what they're seeing. They'll win the league, there's no question about that, but this is the true judgment for Celtic and unfortunately it's in these situations where they're weak.
They don't control football matches the way that they did in the past. In the reverse fixture Molde totally outplayed them, out moved them, out passed them, out fought them and Celtic were absolutely dreadful. There's a lot of these players who are strong enough domestically but not strong enough to adapt to the European style.
It's not like the old times either, back when I was playing, when we had 70, 80, even 90,000 packed in and it's probably going to be more like 40,000 and that doesn't frighten visiting teams. I'm very tempted to back Molde on a +1 handicap at 11/10 as I definitely think they'll score.
However, the hope that keeps Celtic driving forward is Leigh Griffiths, who is hot to trot right now, like Jamie Vardy in England, so I'm going to go with them to nick it, but I fear there's a little bit of my heart leading my head here.
Charlie predicts: 2-1 with Griffiths to score first (20/1 with Sky Bet)
