CELTIC’S game against Hibernian this afternoon (Saturday) will be a precursor to the League Cup semi-final, with the sides drawn to meet each other at Hampden in early November.

That tie will have a 5.30pm kick-off on a Saturday evening, and while Neil Lennon admitted it’s an awkward time, he also stressed that his squad will be ready for that challenge when it comes around.

Before then, he’s hoping to take all three points from today’s Premiership encounter, and although Celtic go into the game with a 100 per cent league record against the team currently second-bottom of the table, the Irishman is well aware of how tough Easter Road can be for the Hoops.

“You don’t know what sort of form either team will be in going into the semi-final and anything can happen on any given day, so I don’t think today’s an indicator at all really,” the Celtic manager said.

“Paul’s changed his formation quite a bit in previous games, so there might be a change in personnel. They had a long night on Wednesday, a successful one obviously, so they might get a bit of a feelgood kickback from that.

“The games we’ve had at Easter Road during my time as a manager- we did well in the Scottish Cup and we had a really tough league game after the split. It’s never easy there and our record in the past couple of years hasn’t been great so it’s something we are very wary of, regardless of recent form.”

Neil Lennon will, of course, be returning to the club he managed prior to returning to Paradise. And having enjoyed a successful tenure in the Easter Road hotseat, he’s looking forward to the visit.

“I’ve only good memories of Hibs,” he said. “It’s a great club with a great fanbase and I had very fond memories of my time there. I made a lot of friends, good people and we had a really good team. I have nothing but good things to say about the club. I always liked Hibs as a club before I got the job and that reinforced my feeling as manager.

“Hibs see themselves as a big-city club with a good fanbase and they’ll probably raise their game a little bit, subconsciously, to play the likes of ourselves, and at Easter Road in the last few seasons they’ve done that quite well.

“But we’re looking to keep the momentum going, whether that be in the league, the Europa League or the League Cup.”

Manager looking forward to capital clash with Hibernian