Team’s Up – Debut for Balikwisha, Engels starts, no Idah in squad | OneFootball

Brendan Rodgers has named his Celtic side for today’s Scottish Premiership match against theRangers at Ibrox with the 12 noon kick-off fast approaching…

Kasper Schmeichel is in goals and ahead of him in the Celtic back four are Anthony Ralston, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Liam Scales and Kieran Tierney who has had many enjoyable occasions at Ibrox as a Celtic player first time around.

In the middle of the park the Celtic captain Callum McGregor is joined by Reo Hatate and Arne Engels. Daizen Maeda leads the line with new boy Michel-Ange Balikwisha making his debut and is joined in the wide positions in Celtic’s attack by Benjamin Nygren.

So the Celtic team is exactly as predicted on The Celtic Star this morning…

Schmeichel; Ralston, Carter-Vickers, Scales, Tierney; McGregor (c), Engels, Hatate; Nygren, Maeda and Balikwisha

On the bench for Celtic today are Sinisalo, Yang, McCowan, Shin, Saracchi, Bernardo, Murray, Forrest and Donovan.

Speaking about today’s Glasgow Derby match at Ibrox on Friday afternoon at Lennoxtown the Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers had this to say about today’s Scottish Premiership match.

“A game against (the)Rangers is always a game that every Celtic supporter around the world will want to see their team win, so there’s no greater game to come back to after that to then go and play.

“Domestically, we’ve made a good start. It’s a shame the two nil-nil draws have put a real dampener on it, but we go into this game and we want to continue that good form. I always expect a tough game when we play against (the)Rangers.”

Benjamin Nygren of Celtic Kairat Almaty v Celtic, UEFA Champions League, Play-Off Round, Second Leg, Football, Almaty Central Stadium, Almaty, Kazakhstan – 26 Aug 2025Almaty Almaty Central Stadium Kazakhstan Photo Nikita Bassov/Shutterstock

On Balikwisha he said: “I like Michel-Ange’s talent and he’s got that skillset to play for Celtic. He’s an exciting player who works very hard, so I’m delighted to get him in, and I’m very hopeful that we can close the window out over the next few days with getting the signings that are going to give us that real depth in the squad that we need.

“He’s been playing, he’s fit and strong and he’s been playing games so he’s ready-made to play if needed.”

Michel-Ange Balikwisha, Celtic FC. Photo Celtic FC

Despite failing to beat theRangers so far in 2025, Rodgers has a great record against the latest Ibrox club with 16 wins, four draws and just three defeats.

“We’ve won most of our games against Rangers because we’ve played well, we’ve focused on performance and not getting too caught up in the whole hype of it all,” Brendan said.

“Playing without fear, and playing the level of football that’s expected here at Celtic. When we’ve done that in the majority of my time here, we’ve played well and won the games.

“So it’s not rocket science – play well, play with confidence, compete, fight, run, show your quality and you’ll always have a chance of winning the games.”

“You always analyse and observe the games and see where you can be better, but each time you’re playing against different managers and coaches with different styles, so you always have to take that into consideration.

“I think the game we lost at Celtic Park, we weren’t very good in the first half and gave away two poor goals, but we dominated the second half and lost to a mistake late on in the game, so we shouldn’t have lost that game.

Mikael Lustig (L) and Scott Brown (2ndL) of Celtic celebrate their team’s third goal scored by Callum McGregor during the Scottish Premiership match between theRangers and Celtic at Ibrox on April 29, 2017. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)

“So I’m looking forward to seeing us and the response from our midweek in this game.

“Domestically, we’ve started well in terms of performance and result, and I always feel, especially with adding to the squad, that we’ll get better, so that starts on Sunday.”

Here’s a recap of the Celtic team and also theRangers side for today’s Glasgow Derby…

It’s time for another Beautiful Sunday!  COYBIG!

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