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Daily Record
Daily Record
Sport
Lindsay Herron

Anthony Ralston predicts 'rough' Celtic test against Raith as he opens up on relentless fixture list test

Anthony Ralston says Celtic will be up for the rough and tumble from Raith Rovers on Sunday as he aims to solidify his place in the side.

The full back has impressively returned in the last two vital league wins over Motherwell and Aberdeen with Josip Juranovic struggling with illness.

Now he’s looking for another big display as Celtic aim to reach the last eight of the Scottish Cup – and maintain their unbeaten run.

He’s expecting the Fifers to be a bit tasty – but says Celtic’s quality should shine through.

Ralston said: “They’ll be a physical team so we’ll have to deal with that side of things. We’ll need to be concentrated at all times and also play our football.

“And that’s the thing with playing any team – that we play our style of football and focus on ourselves, and we’ll be confident against any team that it will be enough to get the job done.

“This club’s built on success and we want to win every trophy we’re involved in, so this is no different.

“We have a heavy schedule with a lot of games in different competitions, so it’s good to have squad rotation and have quality that come in and go out, and it’s good to have competition in all positions.

“It keeps us all pushing healthily in the right direction and that’s been a feature since we’ve come back after the break for everyone.

'The trust is there with all the players. We’re all quality players and we all know exactly what our role is, whether you’re in the team or out of the team – you always need to be ready and that’s the message which has been sent.”

Ralston admits there were some negatives from the midweek Premiership clash with Aberdeen as Celtic allowed the Dons back into the game.

But he reckons their strength of will shone through.

He added: “We’re aware of what went wrong in terms of them coming back into the game.

“But the most important thing was we stuck to our style of football and we came away with the result.

“Sometimes in games like that you have to show the mentality to get the win and we did that.

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