Marvin Bartley will take comfort from Dundee performance, but don’t expect him to have a go at Celtic Park on Wednesday night…
New Livingston boss Marvin Bartley was in attendance at Celtic Park on Saturday evening to run the rule over the Hoops, with his relegation threatened side visiting the East End of Glasgow on league duty this midweek.
The newly appointed Lions gaffer will in no doubt have taken some comfort from the performance of a decent Dundee side, who very much like Livingston are still struggling at the wrong end of the table.
Steven Pressley’s side showed no fear and were unfortunate not to earn a famous victory, due to the way they approached the game and matched the champions for most of the game, but don’t expect the Livingston boss to replicate that attitude on Wednesday night for a host of different reasons.
One reason being that it’s a league fixture, and the main objective for Bartley and his rock bottom side will be to frustrate the hosts with a draw being the main objective for his relegation threatened side.
That will require a backs to the walls performance, and that’s exactly how Livingston will approach the game, as is their prerogative. It will be up to Celtic to break them down in what’s sure to be a tricky encounter until we break them down and score a few goals.
A damaging defeat will have devastating consequences on the Lions, so the last thing they will set out to do is be as bold and adventurous as Steven Pressley’s side, and the game plan will ultimately be to frustrate Martin O’Neill’s men and get the crowd on the players backs, you can bet your life on that.
It’s up to us to break down that resilience, and earn ourselves a positive result as this fixture is just as important to us as it is for the visitors. One team going all at it, whilst the other sets out to frustrate by parking the bus, it will be a very interesting clash that much is for sure.
With no boycott, Celtic Park will be back to something approaching normality. It’s time for everyone to get behind the team regardless of differences in opinion over the weekend events. It’s the first match in a season defining batch of fixtures and one we simply have to win.
Let’s make some noise for the Bhoys.
Just an Ordinary Bhoy
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Dundee park the bus it was Celtic players slow passing at times that allowed them to let falkirk intercept even the goal Celtic midfeild were slow in helping yang and the ball fell kindly for falkirk player who loves playing Celtic cause we dont have a tackler in midfield good goal same time could have hit the gorner flag abd he will admit that looked so suprise when it went in Celtic players done well to keep there composure as the ref and linesmam frustated them with dogy calls then var but they got there in the end when Celtic took the lead ref and linesman werent slow in hurrying Celtic goalkeeper and freekick takers to hurry up nearly throwing falkirk a lifeline by rushing players column has to do something with these blataint officail we had three repeat offenders inBeaton,Dickison,Ross, and theres another one in lee terrible refereeing boot to the face redcard