PAULO BERNARDO will take the place of Matt O’Riley in the Celtic midfield for the noon kick-off against St Mirren in Paisley today.
The Denmark international ace is on the brink of a £30million switch to Brighton and the Portuguese playmaker, bought for £3.5million from Benfica in the summer, steps in beside skipper Callum McGregor and Reo Hatate.
Adam Idah leads the attack with Kyogo Furuhashi, who missed the 3-1 League Cup win over Hibs a week ago through injury, among the stand-by squad along with Nicolas Kuhn who makes way for James Forrest to start.
TEAM: Schmeichel; Johnston, Carter-Vickers, Scales, Taylor; Bernardo, McGregor, Hatate; Forrest, Idah, Maeda. Subs: Sinisalo, Palma, Kyogo, Kuhn, Yang, Holm, Ralston, Welsh, Turley.
Earlier today, we asked you how much you could remember about past games against the Saints in CQN‘s fun five-minute quiz to test your knowledge.
Now we repeat those questions and provide the answers.
NUMBER ONE…Daizen Maeda is congratulated by Kyogo Furuhashi and Paulo Bernardo after scoring Celtic’s first goal of 2024 in the 3-0 league win over St Mirren in Paisley on January 2. Amazingly, it was the third successive year the Japanese speedster had achieved the striking feat. (See Questions 1 and 2).
QUESTIONS:
1: Who scored Celtic’s first goal of 2024 in Paisley on January 2?
2: What was so special about the strike?
3: Celtic overcame the Saints in their Scottish Cup encounter in February. Can you remember the score? Was it: A: 3-1; B: 2-0; C: 5-0?
4: Celtic beat St Mirren 2-1 in their first league meeting last season. Ironically, both Hoops goalscorers are no longer at the club. Can you name them?
5: Which player in Billy McNeill’s league and Cup-winning Centenary squad started his career at Saints?
ANSWERS:
1: Daizen Maeda.
2: It was the third successive year he had scored Celtic’s first goal folloiwng Hibs at Parkhead (2022) and Rangers at Ibrox (2023).
3: B: 2-0 with goals from Kyogo Furuhashi and Maeda.
4: David Turnbull (now Cardiff City) and Oh Hyeon-gyu (Genk).
5: Billy Stark.
* DON’T miss the unbeatable match report and best action images from St Mirren v Celtic this afternoon – only in your champion CQN.
