CELTIC-ABERDEEN PREVIEW: JEKYLL OR HYDE?

After last week’s pathetic capitulation in Dingwall, Celtic’s lurch to the SPL title continues as we face Aberdeen at Parkhead, in what will be Craig Brown’s last visit as a manager as he is retiring at the end of the season. But the big issue is – which Celtic side will turn up?

Celtic’s domestic form recently has been poor, with defeats at Motherwell and Ross County along with a draw at St. Johnstone. Neil Lennon yesterday excused the defeats by saying we had important games in between (more on Lennon later) so obviously as we’ve not had a game this midweek we should come out all guns blazing right?

The attitude of the players probably holds the key, we have better players than Aberdeen and should beat them. But then we’ve got better players than County and Motherwell and turned in dreadful performances. So what players will be selected? Wanyama is suspended, Brown and Matthews are still unfit and James Forrest is sadly injured once more. On the plus side, Lustig and Samaras are back and not the ‘unsure if this is good news’ front Izaguirre is also back. Hopefully Lennon will play Stokes and Hooper up front together, and not put Stokes on the left wing to accommodate Miku like last week. Ideally, Wilson and Mulgrew would be the center-backs but Mulgrew will probably be shoehorned into midfield yet again. Ambrose will probably partner Wilson at the back.

As for our opponents, the dangerman will obviously be former Celt Niall McGinn, who has been in great form for Aberdeen this season. He’s the sort of player who could easily cause our defence problems. Craig Brown hasn’t down that bad a job for Aberdeen, but the fact that his team faded so badly after a good start and his age probably counted against him staying at Aberdeen.

Finally, a couple of words on Neil Lennon, who claimed yesterday that the league defeats were due to us playing more important cup games in between. That excuse hasn’t worked before, it doesn’t work now and if Rangers were still in the league those comments would have caused uproar. As Lennon claimed after the Ross County defeat that he was ‘raging’ with the players and said that the players ‘owed him’,  it will be interesting to see if they responded to his words, or perhaps they, like so many others believe that Lennon should take his share of the blame for the poor results, instead of constantly blaming others.