Ange Postecoglou has named his Celtic side to face Aberdeen with skipper Callum McGregor BACK for the Hoops.
The influential skipper suffered an injury during a Champions League clash with RB Leipzig and missed a chunk of the campaign pre-World Cup before stepping up his training during the break. He featured in the friendly defeat to Rennes in Portugal and is now back in the heart of the midfield in a major boost to the Scottish champions. Josip Juranovic misses out due to his World Cup involvement with Croatia still in Qatar with a third place play-off against Morocco to come later today. They lost out in the semi-final to Argentina with the full-back - who is high in demand - due back in Scotland later next week.
Rangers defeated Hibs 3-2 on Thursday night in Michael Beale's first game as boss as they came from behind twice to reduce the gap at the top to six points. Celtic can restore their nine-point advantage at the top of table with victory at Pittodrie as they continue their quest to land back to back league titles.
Speaking ahead of the game, the Parkhead boss said: "We’ve been back for a couple of weeks. We had a good week in Portugal and a good week training here, and we’re ready to get going again. It’s always a tough game at Aberdeen. Even last year we won there twice but both of them were tough games, so you expect a tough game.'
“Their home form’s been great but I think it’s probably been missed by a few people but our away form’s not bad either, so there’s a bit in there as well. We obviously had a really strong start to the season in the league, and the key to that now is to keep improving and I don’t think there’s any reason why we shouldn’t.
“Our league form’s been very strong even though we had a really hectic schedule, including Champions League games, going into the break. So whilst the schedule is just as challenging moving forward, we don’t have that challenge of Champions League football and we’ve got a couple of players back from injury as well, which I think will hopefully make us stronger moving forward.”
CELTIC XI: Hart, Ralston, Carter-Vickers, Starfelt, Taylor, McGregor, O'Riley, Hatate, Jota, Maeda, Kyogo
Subs: Siegrist, Jenz, Giakoumakis, Abada, Mooy, Turnbull, Bernabdei, Forrest, Lawal.
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