Hamilton in crisis ahead of Celtic visit; Brian Rice sounds worried

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Hamilton Academical will be without as many as ten first-team squad members for the upcoming visit of Celtic due to the injury and Covid-19 concerns.

Neil Lennon’s Bhoys make the short trip to Lanarkshire on Boxing Day to play the 11th-placed Scottish Premiership side.

Three points are an absolute must to maintain momentum ahead of the derby, with Rangers not looking like dropping points any time soon.

Fortunately, Accies aren’t in great shape at the moment and manager Brian Rice sounds like a worried man in the build-up.

His squad has been decimated ahead of the fixture.

As quoted by FourFourTwo, Rice said: “A club like us missing 10 players, that’s half my squad and seven or eight are normal starters and most of them are attacking players.

“Nathan Thomas, Lewis Smith, Ross Callachan, Marios Ogkmpoe – all the players who get us up the pitch are unavailable so it makes it very difficult for us.

“It is very difficult playing against Celtic with your full squad but we have to go in with a positive frame of mind, look forward to it. We have to try to make it as difficult as we can for Celtic and hopefully we do enough in the game to take something from it.

“Nothing is beyond the realms of possibility. We have seen that before. That’s why you get cup shocks and underdogs winning but we have to be honest for a club this size to lose the amount of players we have, to go in to face Celtic, it is a mammoth task.”

Another big Celtic win?

Celtic’s only other fixture against Hamilton this season ended 5-1, on the opening day of the Scottish Premiership season.

Odsonne Edouard scored a hat-trick, with Jeremie Frimpong and Patryk Klimala back on the scoresheet.

It will likely be a more difficult match on the artificial surface at Accies’ ground, on a cold Boxing Day.

However, Celtic simply cannot afford to drop any more points right now.

We need to be stringing together the kind of statement wins that bring us back into title-competing form.

With Hamilton in crisis and Rice clearly concerned, there’s never been a better time to start showing a clinical edge in the final third and rack up a big win.