Celtic lineup:
Boruc
Caldwell_______Kennedy____McManus_____Naylor
Jarosik_______Brown______Hartley______McGeady
Vennegoor of Hesselink_McDonald_________
Naylor has recovered from illness which is good news.
Not sure how the middle 4 will lineout and obviously it could be any of Jarosik, Brown or Hartley out wide. I’d prefer to see Jiri out there.
I expect Big Jan to be much sharper today.
Decent first half performance. Didn’t start brilliantly but got on top after a while. Two smashing goals for McDonald - it’s been a while since we had a striker who excites every time he gets the ball. Credit to Jan too - he’s won a fair few flick ons, not all of which have come off, but was involved in both goals.
Hartley is having a superb game too. Best player on the park.
Poor enough game. McDonald was excellent today and has been since joining. He took both his goals excellently and I couldn’t see any other Celtic player having his movement for his header. All the more frustrating he didn’t start against Benifca a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully its a lesson learned for Strachan whose lineups are usually well thought out.
As a side note I consider Kilmarnock to be the least appealing team in the SPL to watch and that is saying something. The atmosphere at Rugby Park is always poor as the home fans don’t turn up in numbers (and their support seems to be dwindling). A significant proportion of those that do turn up seem more intent on jeering the opposition rather than supporting their own side. Really is discouraging to think that we will be playing against Kilmarnock for the foreseable future. Rant over.
Agreed fully on Kilmarnock and what they bring to the table in terms of the SPL. At least teams like Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen and Dundee United have decent history and decent stadia. Then the likes of Falkirk and ICT aren’t as big but they always generate big atmospheres for the Old Firm games. Dislike Motherwell but they show up in numbers. St Mirren are a very small club really and Gretna are out of their depth.
Totally agree about Kilmarnock too. The loudest noise their supporters made was in the first half when Celtic won a throw-in and Naylor went to fetch the ball and some idiot leaned over the hoarding, grabbed the ball and wouldn’t hand it back to him for about 30 seconds. Hilarious altogether.
I thought Hartley was excellent too. McDonald was superb and McGeady was the other one to shine. Plenty of improvement needed elsewhere though it was always a game Celtic looked like winning. It’s quite frustrating that we haven’t kept an away clean sheet in over a year too.
If Nakamura’s not fit for Tuesday then I think I’d go with the same team that started today. Hopefully the full 90 minutes will have brought Jan on some more.