Celtic return home for the first time in nine weeks on Tuesday evening.
La Liga outfit Athletic Club are the visitors on a big night for James Forrest. The Hoops hero is being honoured for his service to the club on what should be a great night at Celtic Park.
Amongst all of the Forrest chat, the game will also serve as a final opportunity for Brendan Rodgers‘ side to get up to speed ahead of the start of the competitive action.
Rodgers has already revealed that he intends to field two different sides for each half of the match.
That may make this Predicted XI article a little less relevant than usual. But we’re going to give it a go anyway.
Here’s the side we think could start the game.
We reckon Rodgers will name close to his strongest side for the first 45, with most of the players likely to start against Ross County on Saturday.
Joe Hart should start in goal. Tomoki Iwata has been filling in at right-back in recent weeks and we expect to see that continue, although Anthony Ralston could get some game time later.
Carl Starfelt and Maik Nawrocki missed the weekend draw with Wolves, but the update from Rodgers suggested both could feature tonight. Nawrocki making his debut would be particularly popular at Celtic Park, with fans keen to see what he’s all about.
At left-back, Greg Taylor is likely to see more game time.
For the first-half, a midfield three of Callum McGregor, Reo Hatate and Matt O’Riley is probably the strongest we have right now. After the break it would be good to see more of Hyeokkyu Kwon who looked lively on Saturday, as well as Odin Thiago Holm.
On the right, James Forrest seems destined to start on his big night. Rodgers including him in his line-up would be about an uncontroversial a choice as he could make.
Daizen Maeda will possibly play on the left while, up front, Kyogo Furuhashi looks raring to go for the new campaign.
So plenty of players to watch tonight and hopefully no more injuries ahead of the new season.
Kick-off at Celtic Park is at 7:30pm.
In other news, Celtic have released the next batch of their Adidas 2023/24 training gear
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