Scottish Premiership | Gameweek 9

Oct 27, 2024 at 3pm UK

Fir Park

Motherwell vs Celtic

Match preview

After kicking off the campaign with a bang by winning all nine of their opening matches across all competitions and keeping clean sheets in all six of their first league games, Celtic have hit a rough patch in recent outings.

The Bhoys suffered a pretty embarrassing 7-1 defeat to Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League in their 10th game of the campaign. This led to a lot of criticism of Brendan Rodgers for sticking with his open style of play.

They did manage to recover with a late 2-1 win against Ross County, scoring in the 76th and 88th minutes to turn the game around after initially falling behind. They also drew 2-2 with fellow unbeaten side Aberdeen, with Celtic deploying their familiar open tactics in both outings.

Celtic fans were understandably worried before their match against Atalanta in the Champions League. They were worried about another embarrassing defeat. But Rodgers seemed to acknowledge the criticism. The Bhoys played a great defensive game and kept the Italians from scoring. It was their first away clean sheet in Europe in seven years.

Now, they're turning their attention back to the Scottish Premiership. Celtic will be looking to get back to winning ways after two consecutive draws when they travel to face Motherwell. They've defeated Motherwell in each of their last nine visits to Fir Park.

The hosts have also had a pretty good start to the 2024-25 season. They're currently in fifth place with 13 points after eight matches, including four wins, one draw, and three losses.

After a shaky start to the season with a draw and a loss in their first two games, Stuart Kettlewell must have been pretty pleased with how his team bounced back. They went on to win four of the next five games, losing only to Aberdeen.

We've also seen this form in the Scottish League Cup, where the Steelmen made it to the semifinals with a tie against Rangers after beating Dundee United and Kilmarnock in the previous rounds.

However, Kettlewell's team didn't play as well as they could have in their recent 1-0 loss to Dundee. The manager will be looking for a better performance as they try to avoid a second consecutive loss when they play the league leaders on Sunday.

Recent Performance

Motherwell Scottish Premiership form:WWLWWL

Motherwell form (all competitions):WLWWWL

Celtic Scottish Premiership form:WWWWWD

Celtic form (all competitions):WLWWDD

Injuries and suspensions

Motherwell FC

8 Callum Slattery

18 Ross Callachan

19 Sam Nicholson

12 Harry Paton

16 Paul McGinn (Doubt)

-- Jack Vale

Celtic

20 Cameron Carter-Vickers(Doubt)

3 Greg Taylor

Possible starting lineups

Motherwell possible starting lineup:

Oxborough; Balmer, Gordon, Casey; O'Donnell, Miller, Zdravkovski, Maswanhise, Wilson; Ebiye, Watt

Celtic possible starting lineup:

Schmeichel; Johnston, Trusty, Scales, Valle; Engels, McGregor, Hatate; Kuhn, Idah, Maeda