Celtic’s youth side gear up for their busiest period of the season at home to St Johnstone.
Within the next ten days John Kennedy’s side will face Hearts at Tynecastle in the SFA Youth Cup followed by a visit from Aston Villa in the Next Gen Series.
Much of Kennedy’s squad are away on international duty but after a credible 0-0 draw at Hearts last week the hoops coach is looking to build on that display.
“We’ll be reasonably young again and that’ll be a good challenge for us,” Kennedy admitted. “We had two players (Lassad Nouioui and Rabui Ibrahim) from the first team squad but we won’t have them against St Johnstone.
“It’s another good opportunity for the players who came in last week to show what they can do. Eoghan O’Connell is just back from injury and played well in central defence alongside Michael Miller who is a full-back playing at centre-back. To get a clean sheet and deal with the threat from Hearts was pleasing.
“It’s good to get back to Firhill to play on a great surface, a big pitch and that gives us the chance to get the ball down and play. We never quite did that last week so it’ll be good to get back to our usual style of play.”
Next Sunday Celtic go to Tynecastle followed by a home match against Aston Villa on October 24 but tonight’s clash with St Johnstone is the priority.
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Kennedy added: “This is the most important match but everyone will be wanting to be involved when we go back to Hearts at Tynecastle and give us a selection headache. The players know that they’ll have to concentrate on St Johnstone if they want to stay in the side.
“We had a couple of tough games with St Johnstone last season, especially at Stirling Univercity. They’ve come onto a bit of form recently with two wins and could call on a couple of first team players due to the break in the SPL.
“We’ll take note of their line up but the most important thing is what we do. We need to start the game on the front foot, set the tempo and work on our own game.”
Tonight’s match kick-off at 7pm with free admission.
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