The Australia international signed from Motherwell for £700,000 in the close season but his Celtic career was put on hold as he served a two-game ban carried over from his time at Fir Park.

McDonald set up Paul Hartley to score the opener against Spartak in the 1-1 draw in the Luzhniki stadium a fortnight ago.

But he has yet to find the net himself and could not grab any of the five goals Celtic scored against Hearts at Parkhead on Saturday.

The 24-year-old believes the second leg against Spartak will be the ideal time to get off the mark.

He said: "I feel I am getting better with each game.

"We had a couple of games pre-season, then it was stop-start because I was suspended.

"But the goals will come, I'm quite confident of that.

"Obviously it was frustrating not getting on the score-sheet against Hearts, I think I probably did everything else apart from getting a goal.

"It would be nice to open my account tomorrow night if selected and I hope that it does happen."

The former Motherwell player will be playing his first European tie in front of a 60,000 Parkhead crowd.

But the little striker, a boyhood Celtic fan, has sampled the European atmosphere in the east end of the city on numerous occasions.

He said: "It will be my first European night (as a player) at Celtic Park and I will be expecting a special occasion.

"I used to come to European ties and in particular, I remember I was here when Celtic played Shakhtar Donetsk.

"The fans get right behind the team and the atmosphere is something memorable and hopefully that's the case again tomorrow night."

Celtic need only a goalless draw to go through to the group stages but McDonald insists the SPL champions will play their normal attacking game.

He said: "We go out to score goals in every game and we won't be sitting back to play for a 0-0 draw.

"That's not like us, we are an attacking team and we are at home.

"The fans will be willing us to go forward and try to score and that's what we want to do."