Kilmarnock v Celtic – A tough challenge for the Champions at Rugby Park

Kilmarnock v Celtic – A tough but more than winnable match for the Hoops on the new grass pitch at Rugby Park…

Today we travel to Rugby Park to play in the second round of fixtures in the Scottish Premiership, and despite a somewhat lacklustre performance in Monday evening’s 1-0 win over Dundee in the season opener, most are optimistic ahead of our first away-day clash of the new season.

Celtic looked rather jaded against a Dundee side who had the advantage of having played four competitive fixtures in the Premier Sports cup group stage, and with Kilmarnock also having taken part in the group stage, they too will prove a tough nut to crack.

But after a demanding full ninety minutes against Steven Pressley’s side, it will have been of great benefit to the Celtic players who got some much needed match practice into their legs. Dundee showed up well at Celtic Park and went on to record their first league win of the new season yesterday by beating Aberdeen at Dens Park.

Kilmarnock lost an exciting game at McDiarmid Park against newly promoted St Johnstone and Neil McCann’s side will also be looking to collect three points in their first home match of the Scottish Premiership campaign, which will of course be played on their new hybrid grass surface which looks great.

Turning our attention to the 5IAR Scottish Champions, it’s worth noting that new signings Camilo Duran and Kasper Hogh will have benefited playing alongside each other, as well as their new teammates, and will hopefully click against the East Ayrshire side this afternoon. Both are hungry for their first competitive goal in the Hoops and today would be a fine time for both to get off the mark.

There’s also the matter of the new Rugby Park grass surface, a surface that’s recently been installed in place of the synthetic one that had been the bane of many top flight sides for the past twelve years.

It’s no coincidence that the hoops have struggled on several occasions in Ayrshire due to that artifical surface, something that won’t come as a surprise due to Celtic’s style of play, which wasn’t suited to the hard surface.

I recall Brendan Rodgers during his first time as Celtic manager making the point that he’d never seen a good game played on a plastic pitch. It clearly gave Kilmarnock an advantage but their supporters were short-changed in terms of entertainment and perhaps why there were always so many empty seats in the home sections?

Kilmarnock  after suffering that 4-3 defeat at McDiarmid Park, will be up for the visit of the Scottish champions, you can be sure of that.

Martin O’Neill will most likely still be at home recuperating after his recent minor surgery, but we will be in good hands with Shaun Maloney, Mark Fotheringham and Stephen McManus.

Shaun, and Mark, along with their mentor took in the Rugby Park sides opening day clash, and would have taken comfort from the fact that Kilmarnock conceded four goals, so the message will be clear that we have to give Kasper Hogh and Camilo Duran the service they need to make their mark.

We struggled on our last visit to Ayrshire, with a last gasp winner by Julian Araujo winning us all three points after fighting back from two goals down, with Kasper Schmeichel playing through injury that day.

We need to be much more astute and clinical than we were on that last trip to Rugby Park back in February, that’s for sure. It will be a tough game to negotiate, but one that is entirely winnable and I expect Celtic to come away with the points with both of our new strikers hitting the back of the net in a 2-0 Celtic victory.

What do you think?

Kilmarnock v Celtic kicks off at 1.30pm and is live on Sky Sports. 

Just an Ordinary Bhoy

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