Celtic face Raith Rovers today In the quarter-finals of the League Cup at Celtic Park. A defeat last season to Ross County ended Celtic’s four year run of successes in the competition. However, Ange Postecoglou will likely be eyeing the opportunity to seal a place in the draw for a place at Hampden in the semi-finals.
The Kirkcaldy side travel through without fans but will be hoping to inflict a shock defeat on Celtic. The manager has said that he will look to get some other players involved but will need to manage his squad with the weekend’s game against Dundee United and then a Europa League fixture against Bayer Leverkusen seven days from now.
Team News
The manager has no fresh injury concerns from the weekend’s loss, despite it being played on the plastic pitch at Livi. Postecoglou will be able to call upon Giorgos Giakoumakis, who is expected to appear from the bench. Albian Ajeti is expected to continue in attack but Mikey Johnston, who came off the bench on Sunday, will be looking to get some game time under his belt.
Callum McGregor remains out injured. The manager is hopeful that he will be back soon but this means that James McCarthy will likely start again after an underwhelming first start last Sunday.
Carl Starfelt also missed the defeat to Livi but he is expected to be back in the squad to face the Rovers. Liam Scales, who was on the bench at the weekend, will be hoping to make his first appearance for Celtic.
James Forrest and Christopher Jullien remain out injured but the manager is hopeful that the pair will return to action next month. Kyogo Furuhashi was spotted in the background of training pictures but the Japanese forward is still out injured. Greg Taylor (shoulder) also misses the match.
Kick Off Time
The game kicks off at 19:45 (Celtic Park Time).
Where To Watch
Tickets are still on sale; however, the game will also be shown on Premier Sports with the coverage beginning at 19:15. For Celtic TV subscribers outside the UK & Ireland, the game will be shown on the service.
On this day in 2015, the Celts actually beat Raith 2-0 thanks to goals from Commons and Johansen. Hopefully it’ll be a straight forward game for Celtic tonight and one in which we can begin to see some other players get game time with a view to working into the first team.
It’s a Cinch. News from the Court of Session, that the Skintos held talks with Cinch to rename their stadium, Cinch Mango Land, because they couldn’t agree a sponsorship price, £2.00, double the money Craig Whyte paid. That probably explains their reluctance to wear the Cinch motif on their cheap shirts, but will they take the SPFL Cinch sponsorship money? “Well no-one told me about them, cos they’re not all there”. The Zombies….