Celtic name provisional squad to face Hearts with one huge return

Celtic will travel to Edinburgh on Wednesday to take on Hearts at Tynecastle Park. Neil Lennon’s men currently have a two point lead in the Premiership table but will go into the game knowing that a win will increase the gap to 5 points and keep the pressure onto Steven Gerrard’s side who play Hibs at Easter Road on Friday night.

Hearts are struggling badly this season and are currently on 11th in the Premiership table. They have failed to win any of their last 5 games and have only one win in their last 12 outings. At this point of time, they have managed to pick up just 12 points from 17 league games and if anything drastic doesn’t happen then Celtic should cruise to a victory on Wednesday. But you can never be sure about anything when it comes to football!

Celtic have named their provisional squad that will travel to Edinburgh today and fans should be excited about the inclusion of Ryan Christie. The playmaker has missed the Hoops’ last few games with an injury but has been deemed fit enough to make his return against Hearts. One notable exclusion from the squad is that of Mohamed Elyounoussi, who continues to struggle with fitness and will be out for a few weeks while Mikey Johnston is named in the squad but didn’t train yesterday and is still feeling the effects of a knock picked up in the dead rubber defeat in Cluj last Thursday night in the Europa League and will not feature this evening.

It will be interesting to see if Neil Lennon continues with the 3-5-2 formation tonight and with wide players Elyounoussi and Johnston missing that might be the way thinks shape up. However to get Christie into the side in that formation is going to mean dropping Forrest or Ntcham to the bench so it might mean that the standard 4-2-3-1 is used with Bitton dropping out and Christie playing wide on the right with Forrest on the left.

Celtic provisional squad vs Hearts

Fraser Forster

Craig Gordon

Jeremie Frimpong

Moritz Bauer

Boli Bolingoli

Jonny Hayes

Greg Taylor

Christopher Jullien

Kris Ajer

Nir Bitton

Scott Brown

Callum McGregor

James Forrest

Mikey Johnston

Lewis Morgan

Ryan Christie

Tom Rogic

Olivier Ntcham

Odsonne Edouard

Leigh Griffiths

Vakoun Issouf Bayo

ALSO ON THE CELTIC STAR…

Hearts v Celtic – ‘There’s been a few distasteful moments,’ Lenny on Scotland’s dirty little secret…see HERE.

Oh My Celtic Days – Tierney comparison a huge compliment for Frimpong but there are lessons there…see HERE.

‘You make those sacrifices to get those rewards,’ McGregor on Celtic’s hectic Festive Fixture List…see HERE.

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Sourav Mahanty is a staff reporter on The Celtic Star providing readers with the latest news stories as they break.

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