So Celtic head into tomorrow’s game against Hibs with a chance of becoming SPL champions – depending on Motherwell’s result tomorrow. However, judging by how poor we have recently been in the SPL and the fact we haven’t been Hibs this season ensures that the game won’t be a forgone conclusion.
Regarding the injury situation, Victor Wanyama is in the squad after appealing his red card against St. Mirren last week, Mikael Lustig – our only scorer against Hibs this season – is back from injury and Kris Commons could be involved despite being carried off injured last week. Long term injury victims Scott Brown, James Forrest and Adam Matthews are all still out.
If I were Neil Lennon I would drop Gary Hooper for tommorow’s game. He really hasn’t been playing well recently – although to be fair that accusation can be levelled at most of the team – and I feel a rest could do him good before next weekend’s season defining Scottish Cup semi-final against Dundee United. Tony Watt should be the man to replace him in my opnion, he is needing game time and the team really is in need of freshening up. Dylan McGeouch is in a similar situation to Watt, an exciting young player who is in need of game time and could inject some freshness into a team that’s stagnating. The formation played will also be intriguing, as Lennon has alternated between 3-5-2 and 4-4-2. I suspect it’ll be the latter tomorrow, with a minimum of squad changes, as the ‘favourites’ will be chosen as usual, which is unfortunate but to be expected.
Regarding our opponents, as was stated earlier we haven’t defeated Hibs this season, the first game a 2-2 draw at Parkhead in which we managed to miss countless opportunities. The second game, a 1-0 defeat at Easter Road, was a poor performance. Hibs’ goal scorer that day was Leigh Griffiths, and he of course is the player that will pose the most danger to Celtic tomorrow. Intriguingly, tomorrow’s game could be a preview of next month’s Scottish cup final, but there is still a long way to go before then.
Tomorrow has the potential to be an exciting day in the SPL for once, as people will be gluded to their radios hoping for a Motherwell defeat which means that a Celtic win would guarantee that the title is won. But even if tomorrow is not the day, it’s important for Celtic to get a victory which sets us up for next week’s semi-final.