Following on from the opening month or so of Celtic’s campaign, most fans can be characterised as feeling mixed about how things have gone thus far. While they look solid enough domestically, the defeat to Kairat in the Champions League left them having to settle for a Europa League spot.
Sebastian Tounekti at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock v Celtic, 14 September 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)
Given the success they had in the UCL last season, that’s a bitter pill to swallow. Still, the UEL is a competition that they could certainly progress quite far in, and they will believe that they can still pick up a good few trophies on Scottish soil. If you back the Bhoys to do just that, it’s worth using this handy bet calculator to see how much you stand to win from their potential success.
In terms of the immediate future, Celtic supporters are already looking ahead to October and noticing that there are a whole lot of games to get through. In total, they will be playing six games between October 2nd and October 29th across both the Scottish Premiership and the Europa League.
Colby Donovan at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock v Celtic, 14 September 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)
That journey begins in the latter, with Celtic playing host to Braga in their second league phase game. With a steady start to their own Primeira Liga season, the Portuguese side will fancy their chances – but given some of the European wins that Brendan Rodgers’ men have picked up in the last twelve months, they should still back themselves.
Up next come winnable league games against Motherwell and Dundee, both of whom have struggled thus far, before a home clash with Sturm Graz. It’s certainly not unthinkable to conceive that they could come away with nine points from these three fixtures, even if it may be difficult to summon that kind of optimism.
Kelechi Iheanacho celebrates scoring the winner for Celtic at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock v Celtic, 14 September 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)
Then, three days later, they take the trip to face Hearts in arguably their toughest encounter of the month, which could really give them some breathing room in the title race. They finish up against Falkirk in Glasgow, and at that point, it feels like we will have a much clearer picture of where this season is heading.
That may seem quite dramatic to say with two months left to go of the year, but such is the nature of Scottish football. Celtic need to hit the ground running in Europe if they want to avoid the turmoil of the play-offs, and although they have a tough slate of opponents sitting in front of them, these are the kinds of teams they need to beat in order to make a real run for the trophy.
Daizen Maeda at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock v Celtic, 14 September 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)
Plus, October is a month that can get them ready for what’s ahead. As things stand, there are another six games scheduled for November and then seven in December, with Brendan Rodgers knowing better than anyone how important it is to manage your resources at this level.
If they can string wins together and build some momentum in the weeks ahead, then the Kairat loss will soon become a distant memory.
Still would like to think that we are only starting to enter a period, where are squad strength will be tested moreso.
Don’t believe that our squad is as weak as many are trying to claim at present, and would like to think Rodgers is more settled in getting and using the overall squad, that will be a requirement from now on.
Last season we peaked way to early within a campaign. This season i still don’t believe that we have even started properly this season yet.
That is determined by performance levels, which have been very uninspiring to date.
That doesn’t mean that it can’t change either, especially as our tempo hasn’t been applied properly to date within way too many games so far.
We are still at a stage where we don’t even know our best starting 11 at present.
Of course that is hampered by fitness issues at present, but also calls for the use of a squad within a squad game these days.
The next 3 months will be a test upon our squad, especially with world cup qualification games involved for a number of our players also.
A challenge admittedly, but not one that we can’t overcome imo?