Celtic has just posted a video of the players heading in to training today with only Liam Scales interacting with the chap for the Celtic media team. After both said ‘good morning’ the Celtic defender was asked how he was feeling. The one word answer tells the story perfectly. “Tired” and you can understand why.
Fresh off last night’s result and straight back to Lennoxtown 🤙#FeyenoordCeltic | #UEL | #CelticFC🍀 pic.twitter.com/KFJpD37Hbd
— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) November 28, 2025
After two dramatic and probably exhausting matches for the Republic of Ireland in their World Cup campaign it was straight back into action last Saturday night at Paisley before heading to Rotterdam for yet another high intensity match against Feyenoord in the Europa League.
Usually the players would get the day after the match off for recovery but there’s no possibility of that happening as you look at the intensity of the fixture list.
Celtic are at Easter Road on Sunday for the lunchtime kick-off and we can only hope that the tired legs have had a chance to recover. Hibs of course will have had their feet up watching the action from De Kuip unfold on their television screens and will look to benefit from that freshness against the ‘tired’ Celtic side.
Squad rotation is crucial but so too are the three points and the managerial situation also plays a factor on what kind of side is selected by the Celtic manager on the day, effectively his last day in the job.
Martin O’Neill, who has been magnificent in his interim role at Celtic after stepping in to answer Celtic’s call after Brendan Rodgers’ offer to resign was accepted a month ago. O’Neill will want to go out on a high and continue his perfect domestic record since his return. He will also want to pass the baton to the new manager, Frenchman Wilfried Nancy, with Celtic in the best possible position in the table – and that means beating Hibs.
The Celtic players, all so impressed by O’Neill and many of them better performers as a direct result of his arrival – Engels, Hatate, Yang and quite a few others – will also want to make sure that they send Martin off back to his coffee shop on the Kings Road in London, with a victory.
Celtic has a mounting injury list with some key players sidelined for the long term, with Cameron Carter-Vickers out for the season, Jota likely to come back in the closing stages of the campaign, somewhat gingerly and it will be next season until he’s good to go again. Alistair Johnston is another as is young striker Callum Osmand.
Last season was the first of this large single group format and we have discussed on here previously that Celtic planned the relentless period very well indeed, the squad was rotated, the Premier Sports Cup was won, the league was never really in doubt and we got the Scottish Cup final.
However after Munich, when the intensity reduced in terms of volume of fixtures, Celtic did not handle this well and form dipped. Perhaps if the title race was tighter that would not have happened.
This year Wilfried Nancy will arrive and will have to learn from his own experiences. His options squad wise, for December at least, are limited and you would imagine that some signings are going to be incoming early in January when the transfer window opens.
Nancy all be hoping that the Celtic squad comes through the St Andrew’s Day match at Easter Road ahead of him taking charge on Monday with a relentless EIGHT games across three competitions in December.
And then it’s straight into an early 2026 Glasgow Derby at Celtic Park against theRangers.
By the time that all happens Liam Scales won’t be ‘tired’, he’ll likely be exhausted.
Fresh off last night’s result and straight back to Lennoxtown 🤙#FeyenoordCeltic | #UEL | #CelticFC🍀 pic.twitter.com/KFJpD37Hbd
— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) November 28, 2025
