- 1 Celtic vs Hearts: a leaky leader meets the league’s top scorers
- 2 Celtic: four defeats in five and no Carter-Vickers at the back
- 3 Hearts: 19 league goals and a front four that shares them around
- 4 Free Football Prediction: Celtic vs Hearts
- 5 About our free predictions
- 6 No commitment from us
- 7 Information changes
- 8 Your responsibility
- 9 Responsible gambling
- 10 Legal age
- 11 About visuals
Celtic vs Hearts: a leaky leader meets the league’s top scorers 
Benfica put four past Celtic in Lisbon on Thursday, and it could have been more. Twenty-six shots, 2.74 expected goals, one Camilo Duran consolation at the other end. It was Celtic’s fourth defeat in five games in all competitions, and eleven goals have gone in over that stretch.
Strange, then, to look at the league table and find Martin O’Neill’s side sitting top. Seven wins from eight, 21 points, two clear of Rangers, four goals conceded all season. Most of that was built before the end of September, and we’d put a lot more weight on how they’ve looked since the Old Firm cup tie than on anything before it.
Hearts come to Glasgow in third on 16 points, with more league goals (19) than anybody in the division. Wouter Vrancken lost his first four games in charge, which feels like a long time ago now, because they’ve lost once in 13 since. They were in action on Thursday too, held 1-1 at Tynecastle by Nordsjaelland after conceding four minutes from the end.
So both squads go in on three days’ rest, both are patched up in defence, and kick-off at Celtic Park is 16:00 Paris time on Sunday.
Last season’s four league meetings went Hearts’ way more often than not: two wins for them, a draw, and then the 3-1 in May that won Celtic the title on the final day. The six most recent meetings have all had at least three goals in them, and both sides scored in five.
Celtic: four defeats in five and no Carter-Vickers at the back 
The wobble started at Ibrox with a 3-0 League Cup hiding. Ferencvaros then won 3-1 at Celtic Park in the Europa League, Rangers came back across the city and nicked the league game 1-0, and a tidy 2-0 at Motherwell on 11 October only bought a few days of calm before Lisbon.
Duran has been one of the few bright spots, with four goals and three assists over the last ten league matches, and Benjamin Nygren’s numbers over the same run are even better (five and three). Nygren and Liam Scales were both left on the bench against Benfica and should be back in from the start. Kasper Hogh leads the line, while Jota, back from his knee problem, is more likely to come off the bench than start.
Where it gets awkward is the back four. Cameron Carter-Vickers and Alistair Johnston won’t be back until later in the month, Yang Hyun-Jun is out as well, and the stand-in combination of Colby Donovan, Dane Murray, Scales and Kieran Tierney is the one Benfica just carved open.
Home form isn’t the comfort blanket it used to be either. Across their last ten matches Celtic won two of four at Celtic Park and lost the other two, letting in 1.25 a game on their own patch.
And there’s the LASK tie hanging over all of it, a 4-0 first-leg lead in the Champions League play-off that somehow turned into a 5-4 aggregate exit. Nobody inside the club will need reminding how quickly this team can lose its shape.
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Hearts: 19 league goals and a front four that shares them around 
Vrancken’s opening month, including the Champions League exit to Sturm Graz, was about as bad as it gets for a new manager. What’s followed has been the opposite: a single defeat in 13, and goals in each of their last 15 matches.
What stands out is how spread out those goals are. James Wilson, Claudio Braga, Josh McPake and Calvin Miller have three league goals apiece, which accounts for 12 of the 19, and McPake has chipped in four assists on top. Miller got two of the five against St Mirren last weekend.
They’re a different side on the road, mind. A 2-1 defeat at Falkirk and a 1-1 at Kilmarnock came before that St Mirren win, and only six teams have a better away record. Even so, Hearts have averaged two goals per away game across their last ten, with both teams scoring in four out of five of those.
The injury list hits them where Celtic are strong. Craig Halkett and Tom Renaud are both out, Blair Spittal is a long-term absentee, and without Halkett it falls to Malachi Fagan-Walcott and Jamie McCart to deal with Hogh and the runners behind him.
Thursday summed them up quite well. Twenty shots to 11, an xG of 1.81 against 0.64, Oisin McEntee’s goal, and still a late equaliser for Nordsjaelland. They create plenty and they don’t keep many out, and we see no reason that changes in Glasgow.
Probable lineup Celtic: Sinisalo; Donovan, Murray, Scales, Tierney; McGregor, Baur; Duran, Nygren, Tounekti; Hogh
Probable lineup Hearts: Reus; Altena, Fagan-Walcott, McCart, Milne; Ageu, Mendy; Miller, Braga, McPake; Wilson
Free Football Prediction: Celtic vs Hearts
Our prediction: Both teams to score (odds 1.61)
Celtic are about 1.61 for the win, the same price as our pick, and we understand the logic behind it. They’re top, at home, and they beat this opponent 3-1 the last time they met. Our problem is with the clean sheet that a confident home win usually needs, because eleven conceded in five games, two senior defenders missing and a Thursday night in Lisbon point the other way.
Hearts have scored in 15 straight matches, lead the league in goals and won 2-1 at Celtic Park as recently as last December. With four players on three goals each there’s no single man for O’Neill to take out of the game.
Celtic will get their chances too, with Nygren, Duran and Hogh all scoring regularly. Add a head-to-head where both sides found the net in five of the last six, and both teams to score at 1.61 is where we’d go. A 2-1, either way round, feels about right.
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