There’s always something on the line when Celtic take on English opposition, even in a friendly.
Tomorrow will be no different as Brendan Rodgers‘ Hoops face their penultimate match of pre-season.
Premier League Wolves are the opposition in Dublin for what should be an intriguing clash.
The game is a friendly by name but matches against English sides are always an opportunity for Celtic to show they can compete with those down south.
As you would expect, we do come in to contact with English teams fairly regularly.
There have been some memorable (and forgettable) friendly encounters in recent years.
Our most recent clash certainly fits in to the forgettable category. We could all have been sleeping as the Hoops took on Everton in Sydney last November.
The game kicked-off at 3:45am in Scotland. This writer set his alarm to get up at that time and proceeded to watch Frank Lampard’s side park the bus against for 90 minutes.
Predictably the game finished 0-0 and Everton won 4-2 on penalties.
In the summer prior to that we welcomed Championship sides Blackburn Rovers (2-2) and Norwich City (2-0 win) to Celtic Park.
Covid difficulties meant that our 2021/22 pre-season was made up entirely of matches against English opposition.
We started with victories over Sheffield Wednesday (3-1) and Charlton Athletic (2-1) in Wales, before drawing 0-0 away to Bristol City.
Things turned for the worse after that as Scott Sinclair’s Preston North End won 1-0 at Celtic Park and West Ham battered us 6-2 in front of our own fans.
Our previous English clash was four years prior to that and may well be the most popular with many of you reading this.
There’s a fair chance you were down in Sunderland for our 5-0 win over the Black Cats in 2017. What made the result even more amazing was that it wasn’t even the strongest of Celtic teams that started the match.
The thumping also made it on to the very first episode of Netflix docu-series ‘Sunderland ‘Til I Die’. The episode starts with Sunderland hopes for the new season and ends with around 8,000 Celtic fans enjoying their afternoon in the sun. (Roker Report)
The last game on the list happened the previous summer and saw Brendan Rodgers go up against the team he would leave Celtic to manage.
Leicester City were the English champions at that stage and drew 1-1 in the International Champions Cup match. Riyad Mahrez netted the Leicester goal, with the unlikely figure of Eoghan O’Connell equalising ten minutes later.
Last ten in full:
Everton 0-0 Celtic (2022)
Celtic 2-0 Norwich (2022)
Celtic 2-2 Blackburn Rovers (2022)
Celtic 2-6 West Ham (2021)
Celtic 0-1 Preston (2021)
Bristol City 0-0 Celtic (2021)
Charlton Athletic 1-2 Celtic (2021)
Sheffield Wednesday 1-3 Celtic (2021)
Sunderland 0-5 Celtic (2017)
Celtic 1-1 Leicester City (2016)
In other news, reasons to be hopeful as Celtic fans await next exciting transfer report
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