Barcelona v Celtic produced two comedy pieces of defending

Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez are sure to play, so if the return of Barcelona football wasn’t enough, you got two members of the “MSN” trio ready to score from the first preseason game.

The midfielder suffered a knock to his ankle against the Catalans and may well now be a doubt for Celtic’s Champions League third qualifying round second leg against FC Astana next week.

“There is disappointment that we may have lost Nir Bitton”.

But the Celtic players who do feature against Barca can expect a tough examination, Kennedy has conceded.

Barcelona’s preparations for the forthcoming season in Spain begin with this match against Celtic at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.

Barca took the lead in splendid style, Arda Turan placing a marvellous finish beyond Craig Gordon after 10 minutes. Roberts then showed excellent footwork to make room for himself, but again, narrowly missed the target.

Luis Enrique fielded an experimental back-line and a misunderstanding between centre-back pairing Jose Martinez and Jeremy Mathieu nearly handed Celtic the lead within 15 seconds, with Patrick Roberts aiming just wide after picking up a loose ball.

Celtic managed to level matters in the 29th minute when Martinez’s poor first touch sent the ball to Leigh Griffiths, who had the easy task of tapping into an empty net.

Defenders: Emilio Izaguirre, Efe Ambrose, Jozo Simunovic, Dedryck Boyata, Saidy Janko, Eoghan O’Connell, Erik Sviatchenko, Mikael Lustig, Kieran Tierney.

It must be a horrific experience to play against Lionel Messi when you are only in pre-season shape.

Rodgers signed Toure at Celtic on a one-year deal, having previously coached the Ivory Coast player at Liverpool.