Ange Postecoglou confirms he will change Celtic team up vs St Johnstone

By John McGinley

December 23, 2022

It seems inevitable there will be a fair amount of rotation in tomorrow’s Celtic team against St Johnstone after Ange Postecoglou’s post-match comments on Wednesday night.

There was no pre-match media conference for tomorrow’s lunchtime fixture, owing to the hectic festive schedule for all the staff at Celtic. Instead, the club held back further comments from the manager in the wake of Wednesday night’s win over Livingston.

As we discussed earlier, Postecoglou was distinctly unconvinced by his team’s showing despite the 2-1 win and later confirmed he will be making changes to his starting eleven.

The Bhoys boss said when asked if now is the right time for rotation [Celtic YouTube]: “Yeah, I think that’s fair, based on how busy but also on performance.

“If guys aren’t performing to the levels we know they can there are some pretty good players that are not getting some game time. They are training hard and that’s why we have got a squad.

“You have to reward that at some point. That coupled with the fact we do have a busy schedule we will make some changes for the St Johnstone game because it will be a tough game for us.

“Callum Davidson is an excellent coach and he has them well-organised and well-drilled. We know every time we play them it’s a challenge, and it will be on Saturday.”

Giorgos Giakoumakis, Daizen Maeda and David Turnbull are all strong candidates to come into the eleven, with Sead Haksabanovic also available.

We could also see another start for Alexandro Bernabei depending on what the manager wants to do at right-back in Anthony Ralston’s potential absence.

Freshening things up is hopefully a benefit for the team, especially with tricky matches at Easter Road and Ibrox coming up directly afterwards.

In other news, Jim Goodwin takes aim at Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou but completely misses the mark.