Spartak Moscow’s Ari pledges to oust Celtic to give Benfica ‘rightful’ place in Champions League knockout stages

Ahead of their Champions League clash tomorrow, Ari also claimed that Benfica are a better team than Celtic, and called the results Celtic have gained ahead of their crunch tie against the Moscow outfit “surprising.”

Spartak Moscow were on the receiving end of a 3-2 defeat to Celtic in Moscow, and will finish bottom of the group irrespective of tomorrow’s results.

However, Ari has vowed that the Moscow side, who count former Celtic winger Aiden McGeady among their ranks, are not travelling to Glasgow to be “tourists”.

“Celtic beat us in Moscow and now we want our revenge in Scotland.”, the 26-year-old said.

“Benfica are a better team than Celtic but the Scottish side are now the favourites to progress.

“Normally Barcelona are superior to Benfica, but if Celtic don’t focus all their efforts on our game then they could be in for a negative surprise.

“Celtic have produced some surprising results and their win over Barcelona could be key to them claiming the second position.

“Celtic will be obliged to attack because they need to score. That could be a positive for us because we are not going to Glasgow just to be tourists.”