An experimental Celtic line up opened their three game tour of Germany with a 0-0 draw against Bundesliga new boys Augsburg.
There were places in the starting XI for Filip Twardzik and Dylan McGeough in a 3-4-1-2 formation while forgotten striker Daryl Murphy replaced Gary Hooper for the last 20 minutes.
Fraser Forster celebrated signing a permanent deal by starting his first ever pre-season match behind a back three that consisted of Charlie Mulgrew, Kelvin Wilson and Twardzik.
James Forrest wore the captains armband and started the match playing behind the regular front pairing of Anthony Stokes and Hooper with a midfield quartet of McGeough, Beram Kayal, Joe Ledley and Andre Blackman.
Augsburg started strongly exploiting some uncertainty in the Celtic defence but found Forster in top form pulling off a couple of impressive saves.
After just 16 minutes Forrest and McGeough swapped positions with the visitors starting to settle into the match with Forrest looking more at home on the right of the four man midfield.
The home side continued to set the pace with Celtic struggling to feed Hooper and Stokes as the first half ending goal-less.
Augsburg started the second half on the attack with Forster pulling off an impressive save from Knowledge Musona shortly after the restart.
Neil Lennon made his first substitution on the hour mark when Paddy McCourt replaced Forrest with Daryl Murphy coming on for Hooper three minutes later.
Seven minutes after coming on, Murphy who is wanted back at Ipswich, hit the side net with a header before youngsters Tony Watt and Lewis Toshney came on for Stokes and Kayal.
Celtic finished the game strongly and after these type of matches managers love to say that ‘it’s all about fitness at this stage of the season.
Celtic: Foster, K. Wilson, Mulgrew, F. Twardzik, Kayal (Toshney 71), Ledley, McGeouch, Forrest (c) (McCourt 60), Blackman, Stokes (Watt 72), Hooper (Murphy 72)
Unused sub: Zaluska
Kris Commons, Scott Brown, Ibrahim Rui, Adam Matthews and Thomas Rogne are with the squad but were left out of the 16 man squad named for the match. Victor Wanyama, Georgios Samaras, Mo Bangura, Emilio Izaguirre, Ki Sung Yeung and Mikel Lustig will join the squad next week
We need to sign a centre half im worried about our defense! Big fraser`s back in the good books me thinks.
Decent enough result against a mid table Bundesliga outfit who are a couple of games ahead of us in fitness. I know we have a lot of games lined up coming thick & fast but constant swapping will just mean the players take longer to get up to speed.
Not sure why we would take players who are clearly not in the plans, leave them at home to train with the younger squad, negotiate with other clubs etc.
definitely need a centre half. no disrespect to twardzik tho he looks like a great up-and-comer but if we want to play 3 at the back in the champions league then we have a serious problem. i’m not even that fond of kelvin wilson either so probably 2 new centre backs are needed.