Soccer Football - Scottish Premiership - Celtic v Aberdeen - Celtic Park, Glasgow, Scotland, Britain - July 31, 2022 Celtic players in a huddle before the match REUTERS/Russell Cheyne
Martin O’Neill has made four changes to the Celtic side that beat Livingston on Wednesday for today’s match at Kilmarnock.
The injured Arne Engels is replaced by Reo Hatate with changes in attack and defence,
Kieran Tierney is a direct replacement for Marcelo Saracchi, in attack Yang Hyun-jun and Junior Adamu replace Sebastian Tounekti and Tomas Cvancara.
Despite being the match winner against Livi AlexOxlade Chamberlain starts the match on the bench.
On the back of the January transfer activity Celtic have real options on the bench with Tounekti having two impressive appearances at Rugby Park on his Celtic record.
Despite the 20 man squad Kelechi Iheanacho, Paulo Bernardo, Joel Mvuku and Michel-Ange Balikwisha fail to make the squad.
There will be outside interest in events at Ibrox later this afternoon but unless Celtic take full points from Kilmarnock that fixture will be largely meaningless.
CELTIC V KILMARNOCK BACKGROUND
Back in September it took a stoppage time penalty from Kelechi Iheanacho to give Celtic full points.
Brendan Rodgers and Stuart Kettlewell were in the dug outs that day but have both moved off in very different directions.
In November Celtic had a comfortable 4-0 home win over Kilmarnock but matches at Rugby Park are usually uncomfortable.
Neil McCann has managed to turn the tide for Kilmarnock thanks to successive home wins over Aberdeen and St Mirren. The 4-3 win over St Mirren was a genuine six pointer.
With Stephen Robinson’s side losing at Hibs yesterday the gap to 10th place is only three points.
Looking in the other direction Livingston are eight adrift in bottom place.
Duncan Nicolson will referee today’s match with Greg Aitken on VAR duties.
Next up for Celtic is a Europa League Round of 16 Play Off at home to Stuttgart on Thursday.
CELTIC: Schmeichel: Araujo, Trusty, Scales, Tierney; McGregor, Hatate, Nygren; Yang, Adamu Maeda
SUBS: Sinisalo, Cvancara, McCowan, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Tounekti, Saracchi, Murray, Forrest, Donovan
Wow – Just Fu**in Wow…
What a win in a game that was probably likely to be a draw…
These are the games that win leagues for sure !!!
When are we gonna actually just show up, play well, win comfortably without the anxiety of going behind or being pegged back?
What happened to good old 2-0 3-0 comfortable wins?
We cannot be that bad that every single game is a nerve shredder?
In the name of all that is holy we are 2nd in the league and playing every week like we are 2nd bottom.
Yes, great win driven by pride / stubbornness?
But, God we were awful first half.
MON at fault too with his starting line-up?
And please drop Schmeichal and Hatate.
(Why couldn’t Schmeichel use his left hand to save the Hearts second goal?)