Kilmarnock manager Derek McInnes has a clear idea of how his players will approach Celtic’s potential season-defining clash at Rugby Park this evening.
The Bhoys need just a point to be officially crowned Scottish Premiership champions; however, they have only beaten their Ayrshire opponents once this season, with two defeats and a draw across all competitions in their other encounters against the fourth-placed side.
Nevertheless, Celtic have lost just once in their last 22 domestic matches, leading Greg Taylor to label the Bhoys a ‘different animal’ as they prepare to travel to his former club with trophy glory in sight.
Fitness-wise, Alistair Johnston is available for the visitors after recovering from the force of John Lundstram’s lunge at Parkhead last weekend.
Now, the Celtic support wait in anticipation, and McInnes has been giving his thoughts ahead of the clash, as he is the only man standing between Brendan Rodgers guiding the Hoops to another league title.
Derek McInnes on how Kilmarnock will approach playing Celtic
From observation, Kilmarnock are a highly competitive side that will look to mix physicality and efficient possession usage to their advantage on a difficult surface at Rugby Park.
Speaking to Sky Sports, McInnes has vowed to approach the fixture by adopting the same resolute way of working that has served him well this term; however, he had admitted they need to be ‘pitch-perfect’ to stand any chance of pushing Celtic’s title hopes to their clash against St Mirren on Saturday.
He stated when asked why Kilmarnock have regularly taken results from either side of the Glasgow divide: “I think big performances, players have turned up, you need to do so much right against teams like Celtic and Rangers. We’ve had a draw against Celtic at Celtic Park and a couple of wins here in the league and cup.
“We were good that day, everybody will focus on Celtic being not as good as they can be. The league table suggests that Celtic are a better side than us, they’ve shown that over the course of the season, the reason that they can secure a title is because of the consistency and the level of player they’ve got.
“For us, we know on any given day we can have a wrestle with them, be good enough, so so much right in the game and it’s not just heart and effort and enthusiasm when you take on teams like Celtic, you’ve got to do a lot right with your decision making, your organisation in and out of possession, and we need to be almost pitch perfect to get a result against them.
“We’ve been good, big performances, hopefully there’s another one in us tomorrow and we can at least make Celtic work for anything they get.”
Celtic need one final rally to push over the finish line
For some supporters, there has been a feeling of emotional exhaustion this campaign, as Celtic have been in commanding and precarious positions at various points in the Scottish Premiership title race.
Either way, Rodgers has put his side in a position to finish the job this evening, which would cap a successful first campaign back at Parkhead for the Irishman.
Celtic need to harness one final push to get themselves over the line, with fans in no doubt of how significant winning the title could be amid the sizeable bounty on offer with automatic entry to group stages of the re-formatted Champions League on the line.
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