Hearts striker Liam Boyce has admitted to noticing a real difference when he last played against Celtic back in August.
The Northern Ireland international was part of the Jambos side that beat the Hoops 2-1 on opening day. That was Ange Postecoglou’s first ever league match in charge and only his 3rd competitive game in total. However, things changed when Hearts travelled to Parkhead just over 2 weeks later and were soundly beaten 3-2 in the Premier Sports Cup.
Tonight, they’ll face off again in their third encounter of the season, with Celtic having a major opportunity to peel ahead of their Edinburgh foes.
And Boyce has admitted that the 2 games between the sides already this term were night and day as he admitted he’s looking forward to having a go tonight.
As quoted by the Edinburgh Evening News, Boyce said: “We beat Celtic in the first game of the season at home and it was a really good performance but when we went there in the cup, in the first half, we couldn’t get out our half basically. For me personally, I was picking the ball up 30-40 yards from my own goal and having to buy fouls and whatever.
“We know they’re a good team but hopefully we can win the ball in more advanced positions to try and take advantage. As a forward, it’s more enjoyable when you go and press teams because you can win the ball high up the pitch and you have more people close to you.
“When I was at Ross County, Celtic were formidable. They were pretty much winning every cup so we would set up defensively because we worried about the quality they had. When you set up defensively, you’re just delaying their chances to the end. With the quality these teams have, they’re going to take their chance so it’s a breath of fresh air for me up front to be going into games like this believing we can get something from the game instead of worrying about the opposition.”
Celtic are a totally different animal even now
When you look at the squad changes even from that August win, things are totally different now. The likes of Odsonne Edouard and Ryan Christie are out the door. We have players such as Jota and Josip Juranovic available for selection this time around.
Yes we had the likes of Kyogo Furuhashi, Carl Starfelt, Joe Hart, and Liel Abada available to us. But let’s be honest, they had barely had a chance to integrate by the time we faced Hearts in the cup.
And even then we gave them an absolute pounding. Make no mistake, 3-2 was extremely kind to a Hearts team that only managed 5 shots to our 36 [BBC]. It was an incredible level of domination that Celtic had on the game, and you can’t see anything different happening tonight.
Remember, we were already coming up against a settled Hearts squad back in the early stages of the season. Hearts did add 5 in the summer, but it’s largely the same core of players that romped to the Championship title for them last season.
So it should shape up to be an interesting one this evening. Celtic are in as good a place as we could possibly have hoped for. We’ve won 9 of our last 10 domestic matches and look primed to add to that record tonight.
If Boyce is going to get better joy than he managed back in August, he’ll need all the luck he can get.
In other news, Watch: Celtic youngsters score some absolute belters in 6-0 Youth Cup win
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