No trophy left behind

Sunday’s trip to Perth is the only away game Celtic have this month. With three home points from Livingston in the bag, we have home games against both St Mirren in the Scottish Cup and  Aberdeen – who are going through one of their more interesting periods, before the Hampden League Cup Final against our new adversaries.

By winning on Wednesday St Johnstone avoided defeat for the first time in eight games; this does not make a summer. St Mirren have everything going for them, although they will not look forward to returning to Celtic Park, the venue of their worst result of the season only two weeks ago.

One of the truisms in football is ‘it’s all about the next game’. I know this and so it’s with a bit of trepidation that I suggest we might want to plan for the three fixtures before Hampden as a group. We have a new striker, defensive mid and central defender all needing game time to get up to full fitness. I’m also sure Sead Haksabanovic could do with 60 minutes playing time. Use these games to make sure we arrive at Hampden with as strong a squad as possible.  The bitter anquish at only winning five of the last six League Cups cannot be smoothed over.  There should be no trophy left behind.

Playing in such a weak league has few advantages, but being able to build an early lead and then develop players is surely one of them.