Celtic head to Rugby Park tomorrow to ‘first foot’ Kilmarnock’s new grass pitch and hopefully to put on a show with our new strike force of Kasper Hogh and Camilo Duran both looking for their first competitive goals for the club…
The game kicks-off ahead of the matches involving both the Rangers and Hearts so there’s a great chance to open a six points lead over Hearts and five over the latest Ibrox club with a win over Neil McCann’s side.
The big questions ahead of the game will be whether Martin O’Neill makes the game after his hospital stay earlier in the week and if there’s a formation change with Camilo Duran joining Hogh in a striking partnership, which would be something that the Celtic support would clearly relish.
Liam Scales remains sidelined due to his two match suspension for mounting up too many yellow cards last season, so that possibly means we won’t see a 3-5-2 at Rugby Park tomorrow. A 4-4-2 formation is perhaps more likely, although with the manager probably missing it may be sensible to stick with the tried and tested for now.
Yesterday Shaun Maloney confirmed that only Jota is sidelined through injury, with him back in light non-contact training and expected be out until around Halloween. Liam Scales as previously mentioned will sit this one out.
Predicted Celtic Team
Viljami Sinisalo will have the gloves for Celtic while the back four will be unchanged from Monday night with Alistair Johnston and Kieran Tierney at full backs and the central defence pairing being Cameron Carter-Vickers and Auston Trusty.
💬 Back amongst the goals and back to Rugby Park.
Benjamin Nygren looks back on his quick return to action, Monday night’s winner and last season’s dramatic comeback against Kilmarnock.
📺 Watch the full interview now on #CelticPlayer.#KILCEL | @CelticFC🍀 pic.twitter.com/OG7JPTmE06
— CelticPlayer (@Celtic_Player) August 8, 2026
Benjamin Nygren scored the winner against Dundee and he will be in the Celtic midfield alongside the Celtic captain Callum McGregor and Arne Engels.
Kasper Hogh will lead the line with Camilo Duran and Yang playing in the front three.
On the bench for Celtic will be Doohan; McCowan, Tounekti, Osmand, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Hatate, Murray, Forrest and Donovan.
Match Officials
The Scottish Premiership match between Kilmarnock and Celtic will be refereed by Ryan Lee who will be assisted by Frank Connor and Daniel McFarlane. The fourth official will be Greg Soutar while Andrew Dallas will head up the VAR operation at Clydesdale House assisted by David Dickinson.
Kick-off Time
Kilmarnock v Celtic will kick-off at 1.30pm at the BBSP Stadium Rugby Park o Sunday 9th August.
Where to Watch
The game will be live on Sky Sports Main Event, Football, and Ultra HDR on Sunday, 9 August. Subscribers to Celtic TV/Player based outside of Britain and Ireland are able to watch the match live while the delayed play-back will happen later tomorrow evening on the club’s streaming service for all other subscribers.
Predicted Score
Celtic picked up maximum points on our two visits to Rugby Park last season but it was far from easy. Both winners came in the final seconds of stoppage time. Hopefully tomorrow will be less dramatic with goals from our two new strikers Kasper Hogh and Camilo Duran giving Celtic a 2-0 victory.
Enjoy the match!
COYBIG!
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2 Comments
Don’t see any changes to our starting line-up either?
So still expecting the team shape to resemble a more of a 4231 look about ourselves as a team imo?
Did think Duran looked wasted out on the right wing on Monday?
So wondering if Duran and Yang might actually swap wings, especially if Hassan is incoming? Especially with the CL qualification games in mind?
Still looking like, Hogh, Duran and Nygren, will operate best within our central attacking areas?
But 3 doesn’t go into 2, so something MoN will have to consider, in order to get all 3 into the starting line-up?
So for now, believe that Duran will operate in the wider areas for now, until the solution is decided upon imo?
Hope we bri g on substitute quicker than dundee game ball has to be moved from goalkeeper to out field players and forward Thats the one thing that he lacks confident and doing his own thing