It’s full steam ahead with St Mirren coming up for Celtic on Wednesday night.
Just days after our big win over Rangers at Celtic Park, confidence is high in Glasgow’s east end. Celtic now find themselves three wins away from the Premiership title, and with Saints and Livingston coming up in our next two matches, we’re now closing in.
Interestingly, Neil Lennon said that he’s set to freshen the team up on Wednesday night. That’s an exciting thought given the attacking quality we had on the bench against Rangers yesterday.
But, it’s open to interpretation as to what Lennon meant by that. Was he just talking about replacing injured players, or was he including the underperformers in that too?
This will be more of a hopeful starting XI than a predictive one considering Lennon’s comments. But we’ll do our best to balance it out. So, without further ado, here’s what we would go for.
The Team
Scott Bain in goal remains the outstanding choice. Freshening things up shouldn’t stretch to him, and he’ll subsequently be buzzing after his second consecutive Glasgow derby win in two games against Rangers.
Mikael Lustig had a hot-and-cold performance. We wouldn’t expect him to be dropped for Jeremy Toljan, but at the moment it feels like a toss of a coin between the pair. He and Kristoffer Ajer could, therefore, keep their places.
But with injuries to Kieran Tierney and Dedryck Boyata, we would predict some fresh faces in there. John Kennedy has already revealed that Tierney’s injury isn’t a bad one, whilst Boyata is to be assessed.
Therefore, we’ll go for Jonny Hayes to come back in at left-back after a fine first-half against Rangers, and Jozo Simunovic to make his first appearance since the 1-0 loss to Valencia at the end of February.
The captain strolls on
Scott Brown should stroll into the Simple Digital Arena feeling pretty good about himself. We’ll go for Olivier Ntcham to sit alongside him with Callum McGregor subsequently pushed forward as a number 10.
However, we feel that the “freshening up” could mainly be down the flanks. James Forrest doesn’t need to play on Wednesday night, and Scott Sinclair simply doesn’t deserve to. Therefore, we’ll go for Oliver Burke down the left and Timothy Weah on the right.
Up top, Odsonne Edouard should remain in his rightful position after a stunning goal against Rangers on Sunday. Celtic have been used to a 4-2-3-1 throughout the campaign, but Lennon did change that for Rangers. We would be surprised if he stayed with that same almost 4-3-2-1 formation that started at Parkhead.
Below is our predicted/hopeful team, as always, in list form.
GK – Scott Bain
RB – Mikael Lustig
CB – Kristoffer Ajer
CB – Jozo Simunovic
LB – Jonny Hayes
CM – Scott Brown
CM – Olivier Ntcham
RM – Timothy Weah
CAM – Callum McGregor
LM – Oliver Burke
ST – Odsonne Edouard
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