HAVING kicked off 2020 with a victory at the weekend, beating Partick Thistle 2-1 in the fourth round of the Scottish Cup, Celtic now return to league action as they take on Kilmarnock at Rugby Park this Wednesday night.

The sides have met once already this season, with the Hoops winning 3-1 at home back in September courtesy of goals from Ryan Christie and a double from Odsonne Edouard.

Christie is back in training, though he is suspended for the game ,but Neil Lennon is taking a strong and confident squad to Rugby Park, aiming to take all three points to maintain their position at the top of the Premiership table.

“I was pleased with the performance the other night,” the Celtic manager said. “There was a good vibrancy about us and we should have won the game by more. We step in to a difficult game tomorrow night but we are confident. We are looking forward to the game and the players are motivated to get the three points.

“Kilmarnock are a tough nut to crack. There’s been a change in manager twice, and I think Alex might go back to the way they played previously. They had good win at the weekend. We know the venue’s tough and the artificial surface isn’t always conducive to playing the style of football that we like and we are away from home, so it’ll be difficult, but we are looking forward to it.

“They’re organised. The players know their roles and at Rugby Park, particularly last season, they had a very good record against most teams. I think they’ll play how they did under Steve and make life difficult for us.

“We understand that but we’ve got some very good players and attacking intent and we want to show that tomorrow.”

Nir Bitton will miss the game, having been forced off early through injury in the weekend’s game against Partick Thistle, but Neil Lennon is hopeful the Israeli internationalist will be back within a couple of weeks.

James Forrest is also out, though he could return to the squad for Saturday’s home game against Ross County, but Kristoffer Ajer and Mikey Johnston both trained today, so they’ll be in the squad for the Killie clash.

“We need to focus on one game at a time and get our performances to a level I know, and we can then take it from there,” said the Celtic manager. “We’ve got a good strong core group of players in there who are winners and they won’t want to give anything up lightly as we’ve seen already, so the second half of the season should be exciting.”

Manager: We go to Rugby Park full of confidence and aiming to win