CELTIC START TITLE DEFENCE AGAINST ABERDEEN

Scottish Premiership champions Celtic will start the defence of their league title with an home game against Andersen on Sunday. The two teams will meet at Parkhead with the hosts as favourites to secure the three points on offer.

Celtic prepared for the visit of Aberdeen with the 2-0 win over English Championship side Norwich City last week Saturday. The result made it six games unbeaten for Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou and his players. They have a record of three wins and three draws from those eight games.

For the Norwich City game, Japanese star Daizan Maeda opened the scoring nine minutes from the half-time break before David Turnbull sealed the win for Celtic midway into the second half.

While Celtic secured a win in their final pre-season game before the start of the new Scottish Premiership season, title challengers and Old Firm rivals Rangers ended with an opposite result for their own final pre-season game this summer after the lost an half-time lead at home to Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur. Spurs came from behind to beat their hosts thanks to the goals from Harry Kane in the second half. The England national team skipper scored twice in six minutes to hand his team a 2-1 away win. Rangers had taken the lead through Croatian international Antonio Colak on 24 minutes. His strike gave Rangers an advantage at the end of the first half.

It’s almost certain that Rangers would be the biggest challengers to Celtic in their quest to make it two successive league titles. They won the title last season under manager Postecoglou in his first season at the club. Celtic had won nine straight titles before Rangers won it during the penultimate season. Rangers were the defending champions before their league title was taken by Celtic.