Our predicted XI vs Kilmarnock this week is what we feel Celtic’s strongest XI currently is with the players available.
Neil Lennon has arguably struggled to find our best XI since he arrived in late February. He has gone unbeaten in all nine games since arriving, but rarely have the performances impressed.
Lennon did well to increase the points gap over Rangers to 13 last month, but four points dropped in the last two Premiership games has chopped our lead down to nine points with four games remaining.
Four points to seal the title then, and in what’s been such an emotional week, a victory at home to Killie on Saturday would make for an incredible afternoon at Celtic Park.
Billy McNeill’s passing leaves the Hoops as a club in mourning. A performance is owed to the great man, as the day will be all about him this weekend. But that won’t stop Killie from looking to delay our title party even further.
That makes it imperative that the right XI is chosen by Lennon. Here, we give our view on what Celtic’s current best XI is, and we’ve got a feeling Lenny might go for it on Saturday.
The team
Scott Bain saved us from leaving Easter Road with absolutely nothing last Sunday. It may have been instinctive, but his late stop at point-blank range from Oli Shaw was vital. He’s now wrapped up seven clean sheets in his last eight matches, and will be looking to increase that run on Saturday.
Emilio Izaguirre has come in for criticism this season, but he let nobody down at Easter Road. Kieran Tierney’s injury means it could be a toss-up between Jonny Hayes and the Honduran. The latter deserves the chance to build on last week, however.
Mikael Lustig down the right over Jeremy Toljan continues to be likely. But it’s the centre-back partnership of Jozo Simunovic and Kristoffer Ajer that’s looking promising. It’s back-to-back clean sheets for the duo, and a third against Kilmarnock on Saturday would set them up nicely for trips to Pittodrie and Ibrox.
Scott Brown has his hearing today for not acting in the best interests of association football. We’re going to make an incredibly optimistic prediction and say the SFA will see sense and he won’t be charged. Don’t hold us to it though.
That would mean Brown would start in the midfield, with Callum McGregor alongside him after Olivier Ntcham’s shocking display at Hibs last weekend. The Frenchman is going to do well to win his place back in the side at this rate.
Down the right, James Forrest loves these kinds of games. He can’t be dropped, as despite his poor display at Hibs, he generally thrives in live TV games at Parkhead.
In our best XI we have Tom Rogic in the number 10 slot with Timothy Weah down the left. This would allow Celtic to get plenty out of both players without tweaking the system too much. Rogic should’ve started last weekend in hindsight, but Celtic are right to ease him in. Hopefully, he’s ready to take to the field from the start this time out.
But it’s the Weah situation that’s the most mind-boggling. Almost every match he plays in he’s an absolute standout. He’s only scored three goals for Celtic, but if he got the game-time he should’ve then you could’ve bet your house on it being a lot more.
His lack of starts is bemusing, but we’re going to say Lennon gives him his first one since the 2-0 win over St Mirren early this month. Weah impressed once more at Easter Road, providing Odsonne Edouard with the best chance of the game near the death.
So we’ll go with him finally getting his long-awaited start. That could potentially mean Jonny Hayes isn’t even in the team, but we would take that if it meant Weah got some deserved game-time.
And Eddy, despite his profligacy in Edinburgh, has to start tomorrow. He scored in the 5-1 win over Killie at Parkhead back in December, and is likely to do so again.
Below is our predicted and current best XI in list form:
GK – Scott Bain
RB – Mikael Lustig
CB – Kristoffer Ajer
CB – Jozo Simunovic
LB – Emilio Izaguirre
CM – Scott Brown
CM – Callum McGregor
RM – James Forrest
CAM – Tom Rogic
LM – Timothy Weah
ST – Odsonne Edouard
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