On Saturday evening, Celtic will face off against a struggling St Johnstone side under caretaker manager Andy Kirk. Up against the in-form side in Scotland, the Saints are low in confidence and sit in tenth place with their only league victory against bottom-placed, ten-men Kilmarnock. Here at Last Word on Football, we provide our Celtic predicted lineup for this winnable tie.
Celtic Predicted Lineup vs St Johnstone
How Celtic Have Lined Up Recently
Celtic had been pretty consistent with their starting eleven until last week’s Premier Sports Cup quarter-final against Falkirk. This was little surprise, as this date was earmarked as the opportunity to give new signings Alex Valle and Auston Trusty a chance to shine. However, such a massive shake-up seemed to hamper the rhythm of the Champions as they found themselves trailing by a goal at the break.
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Brendan Rodgers spoke after the match and took responsibility for a disappointing first half. He said,
“If there’s any blame on the performance for the first hour or so, it’s on me, not the players. I make eight changes and of course there’s going to be a little bit of disconnection. But we bring on the guys that have been playing, and straight away in the final 30 minutes, the fluidity is at a really high level, so we can create and score goals. We ended up finishing the game really well.”
With a double from Adam Idah, the Northern Irishman is left with a striker selection dilemma for Saturday. Admittedly though, it’s a welcome headache.
Celtic Recent Form and Tactics
Since the back end of last season, it’s been near perfect. In a run stretching back to a 4-2 win over Livingstone, Celtic have won 17 games and drew one of their last 18, and have won their last 14. Overall, it’s 62 goals scored and 17 conceded, but even within that there has been progress.
Of the 18 games, eight come from this season and ten from last season. In the ten last season, Celtic scored 35 goals but conceded 13, averaging 3.5 goals scored and 1.3 conceded a game. This season they have scored 27, but conceded just four, meaning 3.3 goals scored but 0.5 conceded a game.
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This highlights the improved control in games exercised by the league leaders; they have only been behind on one occasion.
Tactically, in possession, the team has evolved since Matt O’Riley left. Arne Engels is a quality player no doubt, but he is a different style to the Dane. We will likely see his game evolve over time, but he prefers to pick the ball up from deep, rather similarly to Paulo Bernardo. Whereas Rodgers wants to see more striker-like runs into the box.
We have seen the Belgian pop up in strong positions, but it is clearly something in his game he is working on.
Out of possession though, he is much stronger than O’Riley. Particularly in the 5-1 routing of Slovan Bratislava, he was immense. He won nine duels and three fouls and provided a real physical presence.
Read More: Life without Matt O’Riley will be just fine for Celtic
The Kyogo Furuhashi versus Idah debate has started to surface among the Celtic fans. Rodgers insists he has two number one’s, and already both have made major contributions this season. It will be fascinating to see who he favours for Dortmund, but this away clash at Perth seems destined for Idah.
Famously a tough surface to play on, it may be better to go for a more physical option such as Idah who can link up play with his back to goal, rather than the Japanese international who drops deep at times and often plays bounce passes.
Moreover, at the away game to Kilmarnock last season on an AstroTurf pitch, the Irishman excelled.
Injuries to Consider
Just Cameron Carter-Vickers misses out. The USA international will be touch and go for Tuesday’s trip to the Signal Iduna Park. Apart from that though, it’s a clean bill of health.
Celtic Predicted Lineup
Kasper Schmeichel
Alistair Johnson
Auston Trusty
Liam Scales
Greg Taylor
Callum McGregor
Reo Hatate
Arne Engels
Nicolas Kuhn
Adam Idah
Daizen Maeda
