Stuart Kettlewell has given his thoughts ahead of Kilmarnock’s trip to face Celtic tomorrow afternoon and pinpoints a perceived weakness in this Celtic team…
The Ayrshire side will head to Celtic Park this weekend to face the Scottish champions, after the previous meeting at Rugby Park between the two sides was settled late on courtesy of Kelechi Iheanacho from the penalty spot.
Kettlewell acknowledged that his side plans to take advantage of Celtic’s vulnerability in the air when they face off live on Sky Sports at 4:00pm tomorrow. The Kilmarnock boss responded after being questioned about the view that Martin O’Neill’s men may be short on physical strength and presence when defending crosses.
Speaking to Kilmarnock TV, Kettlewell said: “I think, being brutally honest, when you play against Celtic that that’s sometimes something that a lot of teams will look at.”
“I think sometimes physically you look as they stand that they’re maybe not the tallest. You take out the two centre-backs and for the last couple of years, you go around the rest of their team and you think that you might gain an advantage somewhere.”
Kilmarnock currently occupy 10th spot on the table with 10 points, holding a narrow three-point cushion over Livingston who are at the foot of the table.
Meanwhile, Celtic find themselves in second place on 20 points, trailing Derek McInnes’ Hearts by nine, but still having a game in hand that could help close the gap at the top.
Caretaker boss O’Neill revealed encouraging news about Arne Engels’ hamstring worry after the midfielder sustained a knock in the match against FC Midtjylland on Thursday evening.
Speaking at yesterday’s media conference, the 73 year-old said: “Yeah, he’s a little bit sore at this moment. I think that they [the medical team]think that, they’re hoping that he’s going to be okay. I think it was just more stretching than anything else, so I think that’s the case.”
Celtic will be missing the backing from The Green Brigade after last night’s news of what is effectively a six match ban, including the next three games at Celtic Park starting on Sunday, for the ultras group. As our editor pointed out last night this is beginning to look increasingly more like Celtic’s covid season where everything that could possibly go wrong did so with a vengeance.
The rest of us will have to make some Noise for the Bhoys tomorrow and with the game live on Sky Sports some might just fancy watching it on television. Get yourselves to the game if you can. We need the three points badly.
Conor Spence
