Tomorrow night is crunch time for Celtic’s u-20 side as they chase a fifth successive title.
After back-to-back wins over Sevco and Motherwell the young hoops lost 2-0 to Hibs last Thursday allowing the Edinburgh side to go three points clear at the top of the table.
Celtic have two games in hand but having lost to Hibs twice and Dunfermline in their last six outings a win tomorrow night away to Hearts at Newtongrange (kick off 7pm) is essential.
Hibs kick-off an hour earlier away to Hamilton Accies but with the destination of the title still in their own hands it’s essential that Celtic win tomorrow against Hearts who qualified for the final of the SFA Youth Cup Final by beating Kilmarnock on Saturday.
“We have been a bit up and down recently,” coach John Kennedy admitted. “We were excellent winning at Murray Park, against Motherwell we did well in large spells.
“Against Hibs we had a decent first half but a poor second half, the players themselves know that this is crunch time and we have to make sure that we go to Hearts and win. That’s the most important thing whatever it takes. We’ll have to be ready for the match.”
With half a dozen players out on loan injuries to Darnell Fisher, Filip Twardzik and Holmbert Fridjonsson couldn’t have come at a worst time but Kennedy refuses to look for excuses.
“We’ve been thin since Christmas, players needed to go out and play first team football and to gain experience,” the hoops coach added.
“Our numbers have dropped but we’ve brought in players like Joe Thomson who has been excellent and there are one or two others that have been brought in.
“We’ve no excuses about lacking numbers, we’ve dominated matches with younger players, if we play as we can we can beat the other sides in this league.
“We had the chances to beat Hibs and never took them, we never played well enough as a team and have to do better against Hearts.”
