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December’s Biggest Game: A Celtic-Aberdeen Preview

Celtic v Aberdeen - William Hill Scottish Cup Final
Celtic and Aberdeen players clash in last season’s Scottish Cup Final
Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images

SCOTTISH PREMIERSHIP: CELTIC V ABERDEEN; SATURDAY 23RD DECEMBER 3:00PM

All roads lead to Celtic Park as the top two sides in the league meet in what could be a season-defining match.

Team Selection: If it were up to TJDS, Kristoffer Ajer would keep his place in the team following his performance in the midweek 2-0 win over Partick Thistle.

Brendan Rodgers will probably think differently and bring back Jozo Simunovic to partner Dedryck Boyata.

Callum McGregor’s form has badly tailed-off recently, and it would be good to see Olivier Ntcham return to the first XI.

As for the lone striking role, surely Moussa Dembele will return, right?

It’s important that Brendan Rodgers gets these decisions right as a win tomorrow would go a long way to clinching seven in a row.

Previous Meetings: Celtic dominated Aberdeen 3-0 at Pittodrie in October, a Kieran Tierney belter opened the scoring before a brace by Moussa Dembele killed the Dons off.

Prediction: Tomorrow’s game is arguably bigger than next week’s match against Rangers. A win for Celtic would take us eight points clear of our nearest rivals, and practically end their title challenge.

Whilst a win for Aberdeen would could the gap at the top of the league to two points, and give them real confidence for the second-half of the season.

Celtic know what’s at stake, which is why I think they’ll win a close game by the odd goal.

Celtic 2 Aberdeen 1