On Saturday, Celtic face Lancaster City. Kick off is 3pm, tickets are available online or on the gate, to pay by card, please use the middle gate.

Lancaster have started this season with two draws, 1-1 at home to Nantwich, and a goalless away draw at Marine. Ending last season with four losses and a draw, they have not won for seven games now. Lancaster finished last season in eleventh. With four wins in their opening five, including a 7-2 demolition of Grantham in Grantham, things looked positive, but only one win in their next eight saw them leave the top five as quickly as they’d gone in.

Lancaster’s top scorer last season was Sam Fishburn, on eight, just ahead of Charlie Bailey on seven. Bailey is already off the mark for this season, scoring in their 1-1 draw at Marine. On average they scored 1.3 goals in away matches and a goal per game overall, failing to score in 7 away matches from 17 overall. Defensively, they conceded at a rate of 1.7 goals away and 1.2 overall while keeping 5 of their 15 clean sheets away from home.

In their last visit to Bower Fold at the end of last season, Celtic won 3-0, with Stephen Brogan, Justin Johnson and Dougie Nyaupembe with the goals, making up somewhat for Celtic’s loss at the Giant Axe where we lost 2-0. Lancaster did manage to visit in 2020, the game finishing one apiece, Charlie Doyle’s opener cancelled out late on. Over the past thirty years, Lancaster have visited fourteen times, Celtic winning nine, Lancaster twice and there have been three draws. Their last win was in 2019, Neil Kengni’s first half equaliser not enough.

Lancaster’s last match, their goalless draw away at Marine, saw Lancaster line up as:
1. Jordan Eastham
2. Sam Bailey
3. Kyle Brownhill
4. Calen Gallagher-Allison
5. Andy Teague
6. Jamie Mellen
7. Charlie Bailey
8. Niall Cowperthwaite
9. Dominic Lawson
10. Dale Whitham
11. Nic Evangelinos

Celtic’s last match, the 1-0 home defeat by Warrington, saw Celtic line up as:
1. Greg Hall
2. Ciaran Summers
3. Ben Woods
4. Kyle Harrison
5. Dharius Waldron
6. Tom Miller
7. Aaron Grewal
8. Ethan Padden
9. Raul Correia
10. Godwin Abadaki
11. Osebi Abadaki

Celtic need a win to kick start their season, hopefully, Saturday is a chance to do that.