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
Vil Sinisalo retains his place in goals for Celtic at Ibrox today.
The former Aston Villa keeper has made just one SPFL appearance this season but after a clean sheet v Stuttgart he keeps his place.
Kasper Schmeichel isn’t in the matchday squad with Ross Doohan the back up keeper on the bench.
O’Neill has made just five changes to the side that beat Stuttgart with the same front three selected.
In defence only Dane Murray keeps his place with Julian Araujo, Liam Scales and Kieran Tierney coming into the back four.
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Ben Nygren come into the midfield to join Callum McGregor. Reo Hatate and Luke McCowan, the goalscorer in Stuttgart both drop onto the bench in a must-not-lose fixture.
The selection of Sinisalo is the main talking point but the Finnish internationalist did play at Ibrox last May when Celtic drew 1-1.
CELTIC BACKGROUND
Celtic go into today’s match nine points behind leaders Hearts who won 1-0 at home to Aberdeen yesterday.
Celtic do have two games in hand but by Wednesday night after trips to Ibrox and Pittodrie a clearer picture will emerge.
Last Sunday’s home defeat by Hibs was a big set-back to Celtic’s title hopes with the added blow of Auston Trusty’s red card.
After his appeal was dismissed the American will miss three SPFL Premiership matches.
Under O’Neill the partnership between Liam Scales and Trusty has rarely been broken but the US internationalist won’t be available again in the SPFL until March 22 away to Dundee United.
Three days after a European away match Celtic find themselves playing a crucial domestic match.
John Beaton will referee today’s match with Steven McLean watching on from the VAR room.
CELTIC: Sinisalo; Araujo, Murray, Scales, Tierney; McGregor, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Nygren; Yang, Adamu, Maeda
SUBS: Doohan, Cvancara, McCowan, Tounekti, Saracchi, Hatate, Arthur, Forrest, Donovan
Players need to take a fair bit of responsibility for that first half, simply bullied and not up for it
Working today but caught the last 15 on the radio, it really does tell you everything you need to know about the good old unbiased BBC when you hear 2 of the commentators saying “ oh no” when they realise Beaton is giving the penalty.
Think on that, the state broadcaster, paid for by licence payers, supposedly unbiased and fair…and 2 of the 3 commentators are suicidal at Celtic getting a penalty.
Absolutely disgusting.
On a side note….where did Maeda find that last season he just had? Cos he sure as hell looks like one of the worst players I’ve seen in ages now….his first touch is non existent and he has had stacks of chances laid on in recent games and he can barely even hit the ball never mind get it on target, all he can do is run fast.
2 poor teams – a draw was fair.
The game showed again that we’re really missing an animal in midfield.
A slightly more damaging draw for them than us…
Would’ve been disastrous had we lost !