Scottish Premiership: Partick Thistle v Celtic match preview
Saturday 12 March 2016 12:30, UK
Celtic travel to Firhill on Saturday lunchtime looking to restore their four-point advantage at the top of the Premiership in front of the Sky Sports cameras.
Aberdeen narrowed the gap with a 2-1 win at the same venue on Tuesday night, and Ronny Deila's men will be boosted by the return of Nir Biton as they look to put some daylight between themselves and their nearest challengers.
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The midfield lynchpin has missed the last three games and fellow-midfielder Stefan Johansen (ankle) is rated 50/50 after coming off during last week's Scottish Cup win over Morton.
Striker Carlton Cole is not available as he is on personal leave while Jozo Simunovic remains sidelined with a knee injury and fellow defender Dedryck Boyata is suspended.
Celtic may have failed to win their last two Premiership games - they have not gone three league matches without a win since November 2012 - but Hamilton Academical's Eamonn Brophy is the only man to have breached their defence in their last six games.
Deila said: "If we can get our quality out on the pitch then we can give Partick Thistle a hard time. Thistle did well against us last time while we should have performed better.
"We want to show how good we really are and build on Sunday's positive performance and get the three points."
Thistle boss Alan Archibald is taking heart from his side's narrow 1-0 defeat at Celtic Park in January but knows exactly where the main opposition threat lies.
"We were only one minute away from drawing with Celtic at Parkhead last time out, although it seemed to help them when Nir Bitton was sent off midway through the second half," he told the Evening Times.
"They then sat back and hit us on the counter attack and Leigh Griffiths ended up doing what he does best. He's undoubtedly been the Player of the Year so the first thing we need to do to give ourselves a chance is to stop him.
"I think we need to stay strong for the first 15-20 minutes. They'll have a big support at our place - we want to silence them and get them on their players' backs.
"We need to try and use that. If they're under more pressure because Aberdeen are doing well then good. We'll use that as motivation."
Thistle midfielder Stuart Bannigan again misses out with a knee injury while right-back Mustapha Dumbuya (ankle) will also be absent.
