Neil Lennon will demand that his side compete physically at Ibrox on Sunday.
Celtic lost both of last season’s derby fixtures on the south side of the city with the anger at the results and refereeing performances mixed with the feeling that the team had failed to turn up.
In December Mikael Lustig and Filip Benkovic were first half injury casualties in a defence that included Callum McGregor at left-back. In May, with the title secured, Celtic put in another sub-standard performance with Oli Burke playing as the sole striker.
Odsonne Edouard, Vakoun Bayo and Leigh Griffiths are all in contention to start on Sunday with Lennon looking for and demanding a more physical display from the league leaders.
???? “With the goal-scoring performances that we’ve been putting in, we have to be quietly confident.”#CelticFC‘s Neil Lennon looks ahead to #AIKCEL in @CelticTV‘s latest manager exclusive:
Watch in full ?? https://t.co/Kn72tCgB6A pic.twitter.com/chLgnVyhs4
— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) August 27, 2019
We haven’t played particularly well there in our last two matches so we need to remedy that if we are to take something from the game. You expect a derby of this magnitude to be physical and competitive and I expect this one to be no different.
We have players with good experience of this fixture. You need all that, you need nous, physicality, I don’t think that we competed too well in the last two games there. It’s important that we quickly get to the tempo of the game. If there is physical battles to be won then we make sure that we compete.
Lennon’s main selection issues will come in defence as he decides whether to play Hatem Abd Elhamed at right-back or switch Kris Ajer to that role leaving Jozo Simunovic and Christopher Jullien to play in central defence.
