Yesterday, Hibs went to Livingston and won 4-1 on their notorious and ugly plastic surface where Celtic seems to struggle so much.
These things have never conferred an additional “home advantage” the way many assume.
If the team which owns them finds them playable and sides like the Edinburgh club can go and win comfortably on them so can we.
Where did we get it into our heads that there was some added risk to be had on the plastic pitches?
Sure, those surfaces do not suit a traditional passing style … but any manager going there should know that by now, and adapt accordingly.
Does anyone think that a more direct game wouldn’t work?
Does anyone really believe we should always struggle in the matches?
We should be going to Rugby Park today with one thought only; run up another cricket score.
It’s likely that by the time we start the game Sevco will have won comfortably at home.
This makes winning, and winning big, more important than ever … and we should have no fears about our ability to do so, plastic pitch or not.
The greater danger on plastic pitches are injuries, and I think it’s one of the reasons we got rid of Simunovic and why another player might be at risk of being sold in this window. Guys who can’t cut it on these surfaces are simply no use to us at all.
The plastic pitch is now part and parcel of the game here and you can’t have footballers who don’t play on them.
Celtic should be comfortable winners here. There will be a surreal element to playing our first away game of the campaign in front of empty stands, but it will be no more surreal than playing our first home match in front of the same.
The manager has a lot of good tactical options for the match, and the extended subs bench gives us more than ever. Simply put, no club in the country – including the rag-bag mob at Ibrox – has the deep bench we have or the ability to change games from it.
A comfortable win will do more than put points on the board; it will change the perception we have about games on these horrible surfaces. I published an article last season about how our record on them was better than the press likes to make out, but somehow there’s still a creeping fear of these games on the forums and social media.
Time we ended that once and for all.
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