Bank Of Scotland SPL
Saturday 26th November 2005
Celtic Park
Kick Off 3pm
It's been a good couple of weeks, hasn't it? Back to back wins over Rangers and Hearts dropping points to Hibs then Aberdeen. Celtic are currently top of the SPL; two points ahead of Hearts, seven ahead of Hibs and an astonishing fifteen points against Rangers.
Gordon Strachan's Celtic side are now making an impression on this league, and are the forerunners for the title.
Even with such a gap ahead of Rangers, it would be silly to write them off. But they cannot be classed as our greatest contenders for the league. With Hibs hosting Rangers at Easter Road on Sunday and Hearts away to Motherwell tomorrow, points will be dropped and things can only go in our favour.
With the other three teams at the top facing tricky fixtures, Dunfermline at home is probably the best fixture we could have asked for. Currently sitting bottom of the league and having only picked up five points all season, it would be a huge shock if we were to drop points tomorrow.
However, stranger things have happened and we'll have to put in a professional performance if we are to keep things tight at the top.
All week, the talk has been of a striker crisis for Celtic. Don't notice any crisis myself but we're short of a few players, yes. Shaun Maloney will miss out after being ambushed by "God's Gift" Marvin Andrews last week. Craig Beattie is also on the road to recovery.
Today it emerged that Chris Sutton and Maciej Zurawski may play a part in tomorrow's game. Sutton has recovered from his knee problem and Zurawski's hamstring troubles seem to be behind him for the time-being.
With both players having not featured for some time now, it wouldn't be a bad idea to start with one and bring on the other with around half an hour remaining.
Other that that, we are probably looking at an unchanged side from last week.
With a difficult spell coming up after tomorrow, it'll be nice to get this one out of the way with a comfortable win and a decent performance. There should be no worries getting a result tomorrow if we play the way we have been playing.
Come On The Hoops Prediction: Celtic 4-0 Dunfermline