On Saturday, Celtic will face Kidsgrove Athletic in the league. Kidsgrove are currently eleventh in the league, six places and four points ahead of Celtic. Kick off 3pm.

This will be the first game since the departure of Jon Macken and his team. Liam Tongue, Greg Wilkinson and Aaron Chalmers will combine in his stead, and it’s a tough ask, with Kidsgrove on the rise. They won two and lost four in the opening six matches, but the last six have seen them win three, lose two and draw one. They’ve won twice on the road, beating Chasetown and Vauxhall (their last away game), losing their other four, with Hanley, Stafford, Witton and Bootle all beating them.

It’s only on the road where they have failed to keep a clean sheet, conceding in every match so far this season; their two clean sheets coming at home. In three failures to score, two came away, with Witton and Bootle shutting them out. Kyron Cooper leads the early golden boot league for Athletic, with six goals, double his nearest rival Clayton Malbon. They score an average of 1.3 goals per away game (1.2 overall) and concede an average of 1.7 on the road (1.4 overall), scoring 8 goals away from home and seven at it, whilst conceding 10 on the road and seven at home.

In their last three visits to Bower Fold, Celtic have won all of them, with Kidsgrove first beating us last season at their place, the previous two visits being draws. In our last match, it took a stoppage time Andy Scarisbrick winner to take the points at the death after Liam Tongue and Ruben Jerome twice put Celtic ahead. In the previous visits, Brandon Newel got the only goal two seasons ago, and Darius Osei and Joe Edwards found the net in our first win over Athletic.

In Kidsgrove’s last match, the 1-1 home draw with Lower Breck, Athletic lined up as:
1. Lucas Joubert
2. Reuben Falding
3. Reiss Martin
4. Jack Bromfield
5. Oli Jepson
6. William Hardeman
7. Clayton Malbon
8. Jordan Flattley
9. Dan Kennedy
10. Nat Morely
11. Byron Harrison

In Celtic’s last match, the 2-0 away defeat to Bootle, Celtic lined up as:
1. Charlie Monks
2. Charlie Doyle
3. Kyle Brownhill
4. Aaron Chalmers
5. Jack Kenny
6. Cam Fogerty
7. Andy Scarisbrick
8. Liam Tongue
9. Ruben Jerome
10. Jack Irlam
11. Ellis Horan

Jack Tinning is definitely out ahead of Kidsgrove’s visit, the physio team assessing the other walking wounded.