On Saturday Celtic will travel down the M6 for a 3pm kick off with Birmingham based side Moor Green. The Moor?s are the first non-Northern Premier League side that Celtic will face in this campaign, and as such, are something of an unknown quantity.
Moor Green began the season as an outside in the competition, like Celtic. And also like Celtic have had a poor start to the inaugural campaign, with 7 points from a possible 21. However, two of their scalps have been pre-season favourites Kettering and Harrogate.
In Darren Middleton they have a prolific goal scorer, and he?s got half of the goals scored by the Birmingham side. He?s mostly scored in the second half, with Moor Green only scoring twice in the first half. One of their two goals in the first half was scored by ex-Celtic midfielder Phil Trainer, who played a few games in our last outing in the Conference.
Phil Trainer in action against Woking.
The Moor Green defence has undone the work of Darren Middleton, and Moor Green have failed to keep a clean sheet this season, conceding an unprecedented 2.3 goals per game at home.
All this said, they lie 2 points and 4 places
above Celtic in 17th place. Celtic?s troubles are profound, and we are going into this game without a single win, and 5 points out of a possible 24.
Celtic have 1 player suspended (Hindle), 7 players on the transfer list, and 3 on the treatment table, so the squad will pick itself and will give a start to David Moore, the loan player from Wigan Athletic.
Moor Green will probably line up as follows:
1. Adam Rachel
2. Richard Follett
3. Luke Bradley
4. Richard Robinson
5. Guy Sanders
6. Ben Petty
7. Peter Faulds
8. Jae Martin
9. Neil Davis
10. Darren Middleton
11. Phil Trainer
Celtic will probably line up as follows:
1. Craig Dootson
2. Ben Smith
3. Tony Whealing
4. Dave German
5. Barrie Keeling
6. Lee Connell
7. Paul Sykes
8. Kev Parr
9. Andy Hayward
10. David Moore
11. Dean Calcutt
The head to head prediction for this match is 1-0 to the home side, which would leave Celtic deep in the relegation zone. A win for Celtic, though, could lift them to 15 and east the pressure on the team.