Celtic v Livi (Sat) Livi v Celtic (Wed)

Got the Aberdeen game before this but with recent developments on their covid break out and Dubai debacle, i thought i'd start the match thread to discuss today's developments.

So far a player has tested positive, and now 16 players and 3 staff members have to go into isolation. Whether they play Hibs tonight or not, our game on Saturday should be fine to go ahead, with a depleted Celtic squad. They'll have a further test before then too, so it could get messier for them.

The Scots Govt is also deciding today whether they're covered by the elite sports training camp status on their Dubai trip, if not then their whole party from that trip will need to isolate for 10 days, players, coaching staff and anyone else. We could be playing their U18's come Sat.

Apparently the only first team regular amongst those who have COVID is Julien so they shouldn’t be too badly depleted & I can’t see how the journey isn’t covered unless Dubai was on the list of places that require quarantine on return.

However, all that aside, IMO, the SFA/SPFL/Govt should hit them with a huge fine anyway. Why risk travel in the current lockdown situation?

Went on the list on the 3rd Jan.

Supposedly Jullien that tested positive, and he's injured, so shouldn't have been there when it's meant to be an elite training camp for intensive training purposes.

Nothing concrete on the list of players having to isolate, just speculation from fake twitter accounts.

If Jullien is the player that tested positive, it fecks up their elite training camp get out of isolation card, which should mean the whole lot of them should isolate for 10 days from when they returned to Scotland.

Don't think the SPFL are in a position to impose fines on them, it was them gave Celtic permission to go, back in November, and ignored Hibs refusal to put back their game, and just put it back anyway, allowing Celtic time to get back and prepare for the game tonight.

Best case scenario would be Celtic having a reasonably good team to put out against Hibs and getting a win/draw, then some more positive tests on Fri showing up, leaving them having to field youth players against us.

Or Hibs just Hibsing it against them.

Either way i still fancy us getting something against them, even more so if they've important players out.

Just read on the BBC that their isolation period covers their game against us on Wed too*.  If they do have to field a weakened team and we beat them twice it'll be 6 pts we really wouldn't have expected, unreal if it happens.

Bloody hell i was dreading this set of fixtures before Martindale took us on this incredible winning streak, now i'm actually looking forward to it, how unbelievable would it be if we could gub the sheep, a depleted Celtic team twice, and take it to 11 games in a row, 9 in the Premiership.

BTW anyone heard if Dec MoTM has been awarded yet, surely has to be Martindale.

*Sorry didn't read that properly, it'll end on the Tues, but any players they may have available from isolation wont have had any training before the game.

Think we'll gub them, they look extremely dodgy at set pieces, we'll score at least 3 goals in the Sat game, feel it in my water.

Flappy in goals. https://imgur.com/bAPrd6n

Liviforever wrote:Think we'll gub them, they look extremely dodgy at set pieces, we'll score at least 3 goals in the Sat game, feel it in my water.

Flappy in goals.  https://imgur.com/bAPrd6n

It has 0-0 written all over it now

Tbh i'd take that Bertie, but i honestly think we'll gub them, they've a lot of big players missing, and look even shakier than usual in defence. They're obv still a good team and have the likes of Rogic, McGregor and Turnbull playing, and Frimpong always causes us problems with his lightning speed down the flank, but i think we'll be able to handle them and score a few goals.

Just hope the manager of the month curse takes a beating too.

Funny one, they've still got some quality players available, and even with them missing the likes of Griffiths and Edouard up front, and Christie, Ajer, Bitton, they've still got Rogic, McGregor, Laxalt, Soro, Turnbull, Frimpong and Duffy, who all played against Sevco and would most likely be playing against us in a full strength Celtic team.

So still a lot of quality there, but a bit light up front with their two best strikers out, and i think we can get at them at the back. Rogic is dangerous if given a sniff at our goals though, so we can't slacken off.

Amy Irons jumping on the Livi bandwagon and predicting a 1-0 Livi win. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55650857

She only started predicting wins for us last week, but welcome aboard hen, better late than never, we're on our way to European football next season.

Amy who,never heard of her.My co poster Orco would give better predictions than,whats her name.

Your co poster never predicts scores. I'd jinx it. In any case orco is auld and disnae have those attractive long blond locks which as we all know add to football knowledge. Miaow.

Aye hen,but I know you.Never heard of her,and besides beuty is in the eye of the beholder.Blonde locks or not.Inner beuty counts and so your in..

Is she related to Davie Irons? She looks like she could be his sister*.... once you see past the aforementioned requisite long blonde locks, she’s not a stunner, not saying she’s not pretty, just not gorgeous & as we all know gorgeousness is also a required talent in order to be taken seriously.


*turns out she is his daughter

She's the sports presenter for bbc Scotland's news channels, the 7, the 9 etc, tbf she's wiping the floor with everyone who's challenged her this season, a different pundit, player/ex player/manager, sportsperson/personality each week. Big Marv and Gary Holt included, just kept predicting Livi to get beat every week, even after Martindaleho took charge.

Someone pointed out to her she's never predicted a Livi win so she said she hadn't realized that and apologized to us Livi fans and predicted us to win, and we lost , so she went back to predicting we'd lose every week. She'll prob jinx us now.

orco wrote:Your co poster never predicts scores. I'd jinx it. In any case orco is auld and disnae have those attractive long blond locks which as we all know add to football knowledge. Miaow.

Grey's the new blonde.

No Forrest or Holt in our squad

I should say that when I posted this I had just checked the Sky App line ups... they have modified it now that Forrest has been brought on.

Have waited till the dust settles. Overall,opinions of Livi fans. Most dissapointed that we didnt win that game.Josh and Effe had great chances to take the 3 points which imo would have been thoughrally deserved. On the bigger picture, we are now 12 points clear of 11th place which at the start of the season was our goal and with a game or two in hand.Thats a massive plus for us and hopefully Davie points that out to the players. Our winning run ends but we are still unbeaten in 9.Gonna be twists and turns before seasons end.But the vibe is still positive. Hope the players are dissapointed and parity is put right on Wednesday. Regardless who they put out midweek. We are waiting for them.

Just watched the highlights on Sportscene, how did Efe, miss that header!

Sounds like we should've won the game but apart from Hibs winning and moving another 2 ahead of us, every other result went our way and we stay 3 ahead of Utd and moved a point further ahead of Killie and St Mirren.

A win on Wed at home would make an incredible run even more so. Celtic will have their covid players back but they wont have trained for a while, but Killie still managed to beat us after a spell in isolation so we need to press well again and give it our all.

We've nothing to fear from Celtic, we've not lost a home game against them since we came back up, and have a win & 2 draws against them, one of which they were lucky to get with an ET equaliser.

Their returning players will have rested; that makes them more dangerous rather than the lack of training making them less so. They are amongst the best pros in the country which is why they are playing for the quad treble winners. They will have maintained their fitness in isolation.

Make no mistake, Wednesday (if it goes ahead... 8:15pm kick off is ridiculously late & cold weather expected again next week) will be much harder than Saturday’s game.

We missed a chance for 3 points but as DM said after the game, it shows how far we have come when the team is gutted at not having won at the home of the defending champions.

As long as being gutted doesn’t equate to heads dropping then we will give them a game on Wednesday & once again a point would be fine.

Bertie Bassett wrote:

Liviforever wrote:Think we'll gub them, they look extremely dodgy at set pieces, we'll score at least 3 goals in the Sat game, feel it in my water.

Flappy in goals.  https://imgur.com/bAPrd6n

It has 0-0 written all over it now

Telt ye!

Bertie Bassett wrote:Their returning players will have rested; that makes them more dangerous rather than the lack of training making them less so. They are amongst the best pros in the country which is why they are playing for the quad treble winners. They will have maintained their fitness in isolation.

Make no mistake, Wednesday (if it goes ahead... 8:15pm kick off is ridiculously late & cold weather expected again next week) will be much harder than Saturday’s game.

We missed a chance for 3 points but as DM said after the game, it shows how far we have come when the team is gutted at not having won at the home of the defending champions.

As long as being gutted doesn’t equate to heads dropping then we will give them a game on Wednesday & once again a point would be fine.

Never seems to work out that way for us when we have a wee break.

From their starting XI yesterday only Ajer, Christie, Griffiths and Edouard were really missing, and none have been anywhere near as good as prev seasons, AND we still got draws and a win against them playing at home. So while it will always be tough against Celtic, we are more than capable of getting something against them and keeping our impressive home record going.

I think Holt was only suspended for one game so he should be back, the form he was in he'd have been just as big a miss for us yesterday as any of their players were, prob more so. Wondering if he'll be a straight replacement for Marv, to rest the old fella for our semi final cup game on Sun. We could maybe be doing with resting Robbo too, the amount of running he does. Poplatnik, Tiffoney, or even Reilly could do the same running required to press their defenders.
Was thinking Forrest could start instead of Mullin too, but the Robo & Marv changes make more sense if we're having an eye on the big cup game.

My biggest concern for this game isn't beating Celtic, it's beating the fecking weather, and it being scheduled to accommodate Sky with an 8.15 ko. If it is sub zero temps it's hardly going to get any better this late a fecking ko.

Yeah, we seem better playing more frequently, which is perhaps testament to their fitness levels.

Weather is supposed to get cold again with snow from Tuesday to Thursday so I would not be surprised to see this called off.

Managed to watch the full game live thanks to my son luckily borrowing a Celtic season ticket holders log on details (the entire family are season ticket holders so had several to spare).

In general I thought we started well and pressured without having much of a shot on target.

Celtic really should have gone down to ten men following a studs up reckless tackle on Sibbald who was fortunate not to be seriously injured.

Lawson had a pretty poor game by his standards; a number of unforced errors (passes too short etc.) and seems sluggish in the first half but picked up a bit for the second but it still led me to wonder how he was picked ahead of Forrest.

Also wondered about the wisdom of taking Robinson off for Hamilton; playing two up front at that stage of the game would have been by far the better prospect in my opinion and Robinson still looked like he had some gas left in the tank.

Comes to something when I'm moaning about only getting a point from Celtic at their home but there you go.

Only watched the highlights so didn't see how we did from set pieces, but noticed it didn't show the corners we got, and read a few comments on forums about us being wasteful with them. Not putting them into the box, presumably taking them short and missing the chance to do so.
From what of i saw of them against Hibs i think it was a missed opportunity to put pressure on their keeper and defence, hopefully we do better with any we get on Wed night.