Celtic youngsters have big chance to impress tonight against Rangers

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Tommy McIntyre’s Celtic youngsters are preparing to face Rangers tonight in the Glasgow Cup final.

The contest will take place at Celtic Park, and will give the Hoops a big chance to redeem themselves after the Youth Cup final last week.

Not all of the youngsters taking part tonight, however, played against Rangers last Thursday night. The Glasgow Cup this year is at under-20 level. Therefore, only the likes of Armstrong Oko-Flex, Karamoko Dembele, and Barry Coffey could be the ones to play in both fixtures.

The under-20 age group has been featuring for the Celtic reserves this season. As it stands, McIntyre’s Bhoys look like losing out on the league title unfortunately. It’s going to the final day, and realistically Celtic need Rangers to slip up, or at the very least beat their win margin by three or more.

Rangers also did a number on Celtic in their last Reserve League fixture. A 2-0 win for Graeme Murty’s men at Firhill stormed the Ibrox youngsters back into title contention.

A chance to taste revenge

Therefore, that result combined with the Youth Cup final defeat has led to a pretty poor couple of weeks against our rivals at youth level.

Tonight, however, will be a huge chance for the likes of Dembele and Oko-Flex to strut their stuff.

McIntyre will be hoping Kerr McInroy, who opened the scoring against Partick in the semi-final, will be fit for this evening. There’s yet to be any update confirming his availability after he had to come off against Motherwell last week.

Celtic will face St Johnstone on Friday in their final match of the reserve league campaign. Rangers, on the other hand, face Falkirk three days later. That means the Ibrox side will know what they have to do heading into their final match to guarantee the title.

But tonight’s contest will give the young Hoops the chance to strike their revenge for that 2-0 loss in the league. The match is live on Celtic TV, with kickoff at 19:00 and coverage beginning at 18:40 Celtic Park time.