Commons nonplussed after 1-0 win for Celtic

Celtic FC's 1-0 victory over IF Elfsborg in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League third qualifying round tie was a "frustrating night" for goalscorer Kris Commons. However, with regular first-teamers returning to fitness, the forward sounded confident the Hoops can finish the job next week in Sweden and progress to the play-offs. Meanwhile, Elfsborg defender Johan Larsson was disappointed not to be leaving Glasgow with a goalless draw, although the slender margin of Celtic's success means the Swedish champions can look forward "with confidence" to next Wednesday's return in Boras.

Kris Commons, Celtic midfielder
Apart from them hitting the bar it was a frustrating night for us. Fraser [Forster] didn't have much to do. Their game plan was to keep nine men behind the ball which made it frustrating for us. I think the second leg will be more open, so hopefully that will leave more gaps for us to score. The vital thing is that we have a lot of players coming back into the squad. Hopefully, Virgil [van Dijk] is not too far away, Joe [Ledley] and Adam [Matthews] are fit again, Scott Brown is back up to full fitness, so it's important that we are entering the most important games of the qualifying campaign with some of our best players back in the squad. We are confident enough in our ability that we can go over there and score.

Johan Larsson, Elfsborg defender
We are a little bit disappointed not to come away with a draw. We defended well for most of the game but lost our concentration for the goal. There's nothing we can do about it now and we go home to Sweden with a pretty good result. We knew that crosses were one of Celtic's biggest strengths. We focused on that in training so it was disappointing to concede a goal from a cross. We came here to get a draw or a win. We didn't come to lose, but even though we lost we can still take a lot from the way we performed. We are pretty satisfied and we go home to Boras with confidence.