Brendan Rodgers has made four changes to the Celtic side that drew with Kilmarnock for today’s match at Motherwell.
Alistair Johnston and Maik Nawrocki come into the defence, Tomoki Iwata makes his first appearance of 2024 with Nicolas Kuhn starting on the right wing.
Tony Ralston, Adam Idah and Luis Palma drop to the bench, despite featuring in the training clips from Lennoxtown Stephen Welsh doesn’t make the matchday squad.
Staring the match trailing top spot by five points anything less than a win will do near fatal damage to Celtic’s title hopes.
It looks like Rodgers is reverting back to a 4-3-3 formation with Kuhn and Maeda playing on their natural flanks.
In two previous matches with Motherwell this season Celtic won 2-1 at Fir Park in August then drew 1-1 at home in November, Willie Collum referees today’s match.
CELTIC: Hart; Johnston, Nawrocki, Scales, Taylor; McGregor, O’Riley, Tomoki; Kuhn, Kyogo, Maeda
SUBS: Bain, Palma, Idah, Yang, Oh, Carter-Vickers, Bernardo, Kelly, Ralston
Oh dear!
There may be trouble ahead
The guy that writes the Celtic blog thinks we are still going to win the league this season,and we have the cheek to laugh at sevco when their bloggers are in denial.
I’m writing this just before kick-off…and it goes without say that a win is vital.
Two words ‘though that I’d like to introduce …and its two words I’ve never seen mentioned in the million words that have been written recently.
They are…Opposition…and Confidence.
Our various opponents recently have sussed the way we play and treated us accordingly…and we struggle to overcome that.
But more importantly…Confidence is something that under Ange was rampant with us…and non-existent with our opponents.
That has also changed…Teams no longer fear us…so let’s hope that today we get some swagger back and put Well in their place.
Hail hail
Here one word for you DELUDOMOL,remember that was the buzzword when describing sevco fans looks like we are getting a taste of our own medicine,and I and we don’t like it.
Half-time report…Feck all positive to report…And it took Kyogo 32 minutes before he got his first meaningful touch of the ball…Says it all really.
Oh and Chris Sutton in commentary made the point about CONFIDENCE…just sayin’.
Rodgers says the same pish every week! Great week in training, by fuck, I just want to see a decent weekend of football.
Every team has our number at this moment , so fucking sad.
45 minutes to save this season, come on the hoop,s .
Score line papered over the cracks… Yes we improved in the second half…but overall our play was poor.
And something I’ll keep on saying until we do something about it…
Our final ball…(pass/cross or cut back) is really bad and I’d love to know what they do at Lennoxtown every day…’Cos if I was there they’d be working on it every day.
We expend tons of energy building up from the back …and ruin it with our final ball.
Finally…O’Riley…? Really surprised he started the game…amazed that he finished it.
He contributed nothing…and he wouldn’t win a tackle in the SWPL.