Well, what a week.
The football returns and now it’s nearly off again.
Aberdeen players decided to celebrate their limp 1-0 loss this time last week at home to Rangers by going out on the tear on Saturday night.
Since then two have been diagnosed with Covid-19 and all are now in self-isolation.
Their game with St.Johnstone today has been scrapped and they’ll be without all eight players for their next two games which of course includes us next Saturday.
We, of course, can look at that nearer the time but they will be shorn of Anderson, Kennedy, McGeouch, Ferguson, Devlin, Oso and Bryson so depleted, to say the least.
Everyone including first minister Nicola Sturgeon has had a go at them and in fairness to chairman Dave Cormack and manager Derek McInnes they’ve been pretty contrite about it.
That’s refreshing as it stands in opposition to other clubs up here who just blame everyone else for their self-made problems.
The concern was that it may see more than just today’s game cancelled but those fears have subsequently been put to rest so no chance of further congestion to what already is a packed schedule in the coming weeks and months for Celtic.
Off the field, we are once again being linked with a loan and option to buy move for West Ham striker Albian Ajeti which seemed to be dead in the water last week as the intensity grew over the potential signing of Peterborough marksman Ivan Toney.
But now the pendulum has shifted with Ajeti now being the one heavily mooted once more and talk of Toney running cold.
And 33-year-old veteran Scotland striker Steven Fletcher also continues to be linked with rumours of a one year deal on the table.
With forgotten man Vakoun Issouf Bayo securing a season-long loan move to second-tier French side Toulouse FC and confidence in Leigh Griffiths at an all-time low bringing in some striking reinforcements is high on the agenda.
Now to tomorrow’s away game at Kilmarnock.
Killie have steadily regressed since the departure of manager Steve Clarke to take over the Scotland role which was as inevitable as it was predictable.
They’ve fallen from third two seasons ago to eighth last term and from winning 18 games in a season to just nine albeit the league was ended with them having played 30 games as opposed to 38.
Still, a huge drop off in form is pretty evident.
We beat them 3-1 every time we played them in the last campaign which was twice at Celtic Park and once at Rugby Park.
Their squad is pretty much intact from last term save the significant loss of Scotland internationalist right-back Stephen O’Donnell who departed under freedom of contract and they’ve added nine new players to the squad with four fringe first-team players departing alongside O’Donnell.
None of their arrivals are anyone you’ve heard of with most coming from the English lower leagues though they have made former loanee Aaron Tshibola a permanent signing and have also brought in defender Clévid Dikamona from Hearts where he failed to make any real impact.
They started their campaign with a 2-1 defeat at Hibs last weekend and don’t expect them to do anything different this term under manager Alex Dyer than the less effective attempt to replicate the way that they played under Clarke.
As for Celtic, there are no new injuries to report and the only significant change to last weeks line-up could be a debut given to new goalkeeper Vasilis Barkas who was brought in for £5 million a few weeks ago.
It was clean sheets galore for him at AEK so let’s hope for more of the same with Celtic.
Sunday will also have a double interest as the Champions League first-round draw will be made earlier in the day so we’ll finally know who we’ll be playing in the one-off game as opposed to the standard two-legged affair on either the 18th or 19th of August.
The draw for the second round is made a day later.
Two days after that we’ll be away to St.Mirren in the league.
So on and off the pitch, things are starting to take shape and there will be loads to review and analyse in the coming days.
Let’s hope it’s all good stuff.
Here’s footage from the last time we visited Rugby Park.
....Always A Tim! 