Sinclair is out. Griffiths is back training but I’d imagine he’s more likely to be on the bench. Simunovic doesn’t normally play twice in a week but Rodgers has said he should be available for selection tomorrow.
I think it really just comes down to the wing positions. I’d go:
Gordon
Lustig Simunovic Sviatchenko Izaguirre
Brown Armstrong
Roberts Rogic Forrest
Dembélé
We don’t normally play both Roberts and Forrest but most of that is because they both prefer playing on the right. I wouldn’t like to see us going too conservative and playing McGregor there or else shifting Armstrong wide. We should be putting on maximum pressure and playing our most offensive team.
Aberdeen seem to have gone for a more attacking lineup than when we played them at Pittodrie recently - Rooney and Maddison start this time along with Hayes. I think it’ll suit Celtic better if they play a more open game.
I expect Forrest to start on the left but the three behind Dembélé are interchangeable. I see Mackay-Steven is on the bench for the first time this season.
I haven’t seen much of Aberdeen but it seemed ridiculous not to play Rooney and Madison the last day. One of those where you think her manager is either trying to be too clever or he’s just too conservative.
Looks like domestic rivals have settled on a formation / tactic to disrupt Celtic. Play 4-5-1 leaving one of our centre backs free to have the ball inside our own half. But trying to stop us passing through the lines by pressing our midfield hard when we try to involve them and almost going man for man on them.
Another little example there of Rogic being flat footed and lightweight when he gets the ball. Bags of ability but he’s slow and timid on the ball sometimes in good positions. He should like when the defenders come forward to snap at him but he invariably just gets shrugged off it instead of capitalising on them diving in.
Yes. But they haven’t allowed much for the direct ball to Dembélé which has worked a couple of times already and if he lays it off to Roberts running at them 1v1 I think they’ll be in trouble. We also have Armstrong being much more mobile than Bitton would have been in other games and Brown happy to drop deeper and let centre backs stroll forward with it - all of which makes it harder for them to press our midfield like that.
