MARTIN O’NEILL is preparing for a pitch battle when Celtic take on Dundee United in another crucial Premiership encounter.
Before today’s games, the champions are two points behind Hearts and one ahead of Danny Rohl’s Ibrox side with eight matches to play.
Wilfried Nancy was in charge when the Hoops visited the venue in December and somehow blew a one-goal interval advantage courtesy of an early Daizen Maeda strike to crash 2-1 to Jim Goodwin’s men.
However, O’Neill was back in interim control when the teams locked horns in the east end of Glasgow in January with the hosts easing to a 4-0 victory with goals from Yang Hyun-jun, Arne Engels, Benjamin Nygren and Maeda.
UNITED WE FALL…Daizen Maeda fires Celtic into an early lead at Tannadice in December.
It’s another must-win confrontation for Celtic and the Irishman expects a tough 90 minutes which won’t be made any easier because of the questionable condition of the Tayside playing surface.
O’Neill said: “I’m sure that even with a couple of days of sun, the pitch won’t improve that much.
“It’ll be the same for both sides, so we’ll just get on with it.
“It will be a really difficult game. We know that, but as long as we’re mentally prepared for it, that’ll be absolutely fine.
“There will be plenty of twists and turns before the end of the season.”
O’Neill, of course, will be without the services of keeper Kasper Schmeichel whose career is now under threat due to the persistent right shoulder problem that he sustained while on international duty for Denmark against Portugal a year ago.
BEST FOOT FORWARD…Kasper Schmeichel blocks a Dundee United shot, but the keeper was left helpless by two other second-half efforts as Celtic slumped to a 2-1 loss in December.
The news took O’Neill on the back foot as he told Celtic TV: “I was surprised at the severity of it.
“I knew that he was having injections to play some of the games. Whilst that isn’t a great remedy, I must admit that I didn’t realise how bad it was.
“After the Rangers game, he got an injection and I don’t think that went terribly well. It caused a lot of inflammation.
“I didn’t know it was as severe as it is and that it was career threatening. I was disappointed to hear the news.”
Viljami Sinisalo has put together a sequence of impressive performances in his five successive outings and the Finn will be in No.1 position tomorrow.
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