Fresh off the back of their Champions League thrashing of RB Leipzig, Shakhtar Donetsk continued their unbeaten start to the Ukrainian Premier League season with a last gasp win over Chornomorets Odessa. Goals from former Hoops flop Marian Shved and Oleg Ocheretko cancelled out Maksym Bragaru's early opener to give Igor Jovićević side all three points deep into second half stoppage time.
Shakhtar host Celtic in Warsaw on Wednesday in match day two of Europe's elite competition as they look to try cement their place in the knockout stage. And Ange Postecoglou's men will be fresh and ready for the tie after having their Scottish Premiership clash with Livingston called off due to the sad passing of Her Majesty, The Queen on Thursday.
The Ukrainians preparations got off to the worst possible start as Bragaru opened the scoring for the visitors after just ten minutes. Shakhtar pushed for an equaliser but struggled to muster any clear cut attempts at Dmytro Nepogodov in the Odessa goal despite dominating the bulk of possession. They were resulted into trying to break down a resolute defence with crosses into the box and almost ended up two goals down when the visitors had a gilt-edged chance fired narrowly wide before going in one behind at the break.
Shakhtar boss Jovićević looked for a response from his side in the second half by introducing Lassina Traore in place of Ivan Petryak. Boddan Mykhaylinchenko spurred a superb chance to get back on level terms as he headed inches wide of the post on the 55th minute. But it all wasn't going their way with the frustration kicking in with a few niggly fouls as they failed to replicate the clinical football displayed against Leipzig in midweek.
However, up stepped Shved whose bullet header equalised for Shakhtar with 15 minutes to go - which helped turn the momentum in favour of the hosts in their search to land all three points. They threw everything at it and won a series of corners as the clock ticked down on full time.
And the pressure paid off in the sixth minute of added time as Ocheretko's effort deflected into the net to send the home bench wild and keep the momentum going ahead their clash with Celtic.
Shakhtar revealed earlier this week that the match against the Hoops is heading for a sell-out, with less than 2,500 tickets remaining of the 31,800 available at the Stadion Wojska Polskiego.
READ NEXT
