Yes, it's Celtic's first visit since that glorious night when we rattled four past them and waved cheerio to Tony Mowbray and his horrendous reign at Parkhead. It was a wonderful performance from every man in black and white stripes to wipe away the misery of the League Cup disappointment and provide a memorable night.
I said last week that we could never really get revenge over Rangers for beating us with nine men and I feel the same is true for Celtic gaining revenge over us. Sure, we lost 4-0 at Parkhead this season, but that was hardly unexpected and few people could have raised an eyebrow. We humiliated Celtic in a way that hadn't happened for years and the only way they can properly gain revenge would be by doing to us what they did to Aberdeen last week.
While Celtic lost during the week, we go into this one on a high after a terrific win over Dundee United. It was as unexpected as it was welcome and we can finally put to bed the problem of getting points on the road. We now have two home games coming up and while we need to take something from next week's game against Motherwell, anything we get tomorrow is a bonus. Having already beaten them once this year - and twice since we moved to Greenhill Road - another victory over Celtic is pretty unlikely. But stranger things have happened - we could have a striker whose averaging almost a goal a game.
Actually, we do have one of them in the form of Michael Higdon. The big man has really come on form in the last few weeks and if we could just get him to work a wee bit harder we'd have a great player - but then he probably wouldn't be with us. The partnership with Gareth Wardlaw seems to be working well, even though the former postie has a habit of missing sitters, and will be put into action again tomorrow night. Celtic seemed to struggle with Kevin Kyle during the week so hopefully the Higdon and Wardlaw partnership will cause them similar problems. Unfortunately, Paul McGowan will be missing as he isn't allowed to play against his full-time employers. If we stick with a 3-5-2, it's almost certain Aaron Mooy will take over from him.
There will be another change in midfield as Hugh Murray looks set to be missing for the next couple of months after fracturing his cheekbone in Wednesday's win. Although Shuggy's form hasn't been great this season, losing him is still a major blow. The ideal replacement would be Sean Lynch, who is fit again and came on for him during the week. It would make sense to start him and I'd rather see him in the team than Garry Brady. The other option is Kenny McLean, but it's unlikely the youngster will be thrown in for a game like this. Aside from that, the team is likely to stay the same with Lee Mair and Nick Hegarty definitely out. The good news is Paul Gallacher, David Barron, Steven Robb, Craig Dargo and Steven Thomson are getting closer to fitness and are likely to be ready for first team action by the end of the month.
As a ginger, I am rather annoyed with Neil Lennon at the moment. He isn't exactly doing much to disprove the myth that we have short tempers and get wound up by just about everything. After every Celtic games these days he is usually moaning about some refereeing injustice, something the Celtic fans lap up and the rest of us just laugh at. His rant after Wednesday night's defeat to Hearts was comical and he has been rightly punished for it, meaning he'll be in the stand rather than the dugout tomorrow afternoon. However, his whinging about decisions going against his sides may just work in his favour - don't be surprised to see Celtic get even more dodgy decisions in their favour than normal tomorrow as the officials try to prove they aren't involved in some sort of conspiracy against the Hoops.
Aside from his ranting, the Celtic Lennon seems to be a half decent manager and is certainly doing far better than I expected. He's only lost two league games since he took over in March, although those have both been in the last couple of weeks, suggesting they aren't unbeatable. Worryingly for Celtic, one of those defeats came to Rangers, meaning they are currently playing catch up in the title race. They also have a tendency to bottle it in big games - witness their defeat in last season's Scottish Cup semi-final to Ross County and their limp exits from European competition this term. If they can get the mental resolve to win the bigger games while gubbing the rest of us in to oblivion, they may just stop Rangers from doing three in a row.
Celtic certainly have the strikers to fire them to the title as both Anthony Stokes and Gary Hooper bagged hat-tricks in last week's demolition of Aberdeen. Stokes has already been to Greenhill Road this season and looked pretty average when playing for Hibs, but then his mind was on his big money move to his boyhood heroes. Hooper has done well, but he also subscribes to Neil Lennon's thoughts on referees. Other striking options to harm us include Georgios Samaras and Daryl Murphy, while Lennon has recently acquired French attacking midfielder Olivier Kapo. There's also Champ Man legend Paddy McCourt, who seems to specialise in scoring wonder goals.
Mowbray's time in charge saw him dismantling a pretty good squad that he has now amusingly inherited at Middlesbrough. When Lennon took over, he spent much of the summer shunting out Mowbray's duds and he deserves credit for finding clubs stupid enough to take guys like Marc-Antoine Fortune. Some the guys he brought in are pretty handy - Efrain Juarez and midfielder Sung-Yong Ki both played in the World Cup while Joe Ledley was wanted by bigger clubs down south, although he's suspended after his shocking tackle during the week (Lennon, naturally, didn't even think it was worthy of a foul).
A rather more surprise departure was Artur Boruc, but Fraser Forster was brought in on loan from Newcastle to replace the keeper. A more scary looking figure is Daniel Majstorovic, who gives new meaning to the phrase "no nonsense defender". There are a few of the old team still around but the majority are guys Mowbray inherited like Scott Brown and Shaun Maloney. Jos Hoiveld and Thomas Rogne seem to be the only surviving Mowbray signings, which is pretty remarkable considering how many players he signed during the two transfer windows he had at Parkhead.
A win tomorrow is pretty unlikely, but I wasn't exactly confident about our chances for Wednesday night and that worked out OK. A point would be a huge bonus and could play a huge part in keeping us up, just as the points gained from wins over the Old Firm have done in each of the last two seasons.