BUSY BHOYS WILL BOUNCE BACK

Neil Lennon and his team are gearing up for a heavy schedule of games and are aiming to return to winning ways as quickly as possible

- TONY CONNELLY

THIS week’s midweek fixture away to St Mirren will be the first time in over five months since Celtic have played two competitive games in the space of four days.

The quick turnaround is a welcomed challenge for Neil Lennon’s side, who will be determined to make up for the weekend’s draw at Rugby Park and build some momentum for what is shaping up to be a big month.

Jim Goodwin’s St Mirren side suffered a 5-0 defeat the last time the two sides met. That was back on March 7 at Paradise, which turned out to be the final game of the 2019/20 season.

A similar result and performance tonight (Wednesday) in Paisley is exactly what Neil Lennon will be looking for from his players, particularly after the disappointment of Sunday’s 1-1 draw against Kilmarnock.

“We don’t think any game coming up will be easy,” said the Celtic manager. “I don’t take anything for granted. We dropped a couple of points against Kilmarnock, which is disappointing, but we have a long way to go and the team will get better as we go.

“We’re looking forward to the game on Wednesday when it comes and we’re looking for a good performance. All the teams will raise their game to play against us and they sometimes find that little bit extra subconsciously. St Mirren had a good start to the season with a win against Livingston. They’re a well-organised and well-structured side.

“We have to put Kilmarnock behind us, take the positives from it and work on things that we could have done better and integrated that into the game on Wednesday. We’ll get that match rhythm with another game under our belt and we’ll aim to get the points, that’s the incentive for us.”