On Saturday, Celtic play our first home Saturday league match of the season when we host Atherton Collieries (kick off 3pm). Atherton are currently eighteenth in the Northern Premier League Premier six places and three points behind Celtic on four points.

Last season, Atherton won the league to earn promotion to the Northern Premier, seven points clear of also promoted Radcliffe Borough, with eighty-two points. They scored eighty-nine goals and conceded fifty-five, winning twenty-six games, drawing four and losing eight all season. This season, they have won one of their opening five matches, losing three and drawing one. They drew away on their opening game, 2-2 with Ashton United and won their last home match, 3-1 over Nantwich, but their other three league games have all been losses, most recently away at Bamber Bridge, losing 3-0.

Former Celt, Oli Roberts, is currently leading their top scorer chart with two of their seven goals, joint with Vincent Bailey. They have been scoring at a rate of 0.7 goals per game away from home (1.6 overall), whilst conceding two goals per game away from home and 2.2 overall. So far they have conceded eleven goals, six of which came away from home and scored two away from home, both in the Ashton match. Both of their failures to score came away from home, and they have kept no clean sheets.

Since the late eighties, at least, we've never met Atherton.

Atherton's most recent match was an FA Cup replay at home to FC United of Manchester, a game they lost 1-0 after holding FC United to a 2-2 draw away at FC United, equalising twice before a replay beckoned. In that match, Atherton lined up as:
1. Oliver Byrne
2. Niall Battersby
3. Gareth Peet
4. David Sherlock
5. Daniel Lafferty
6. Clive Smith
7. Jack Egan
8. Vincent Bailey
9. Tom Bentham
10. Jordan Cover
11. Bradley Lynch

Celtic will be once again without Crag Hobson, who is serving the last of his three match ban. In our last match, the 3-0 away loss at Basford, Celtic lined up as:
1. Alex Fojtíček
2. Declan Walker
3. Kallum Mantack
4. Anthony Whitehead
5. Mark Lees
6. Stephen O'Halloran
7. Scott Bakkor
8. Ross Dent
9. Liam MacDevitt
10. Nathan Valentine
11. Neil Kengni

Celtic can potentially rise five spots in the table with a win, whilst four teams are within range of overtaking us with a loss. A draw could see us rise one place, depending on Witton's home match to Gainsborough.