Motherwell midfielder Andy Halliday reckons they can give Celtic a run for their money on Sunday – if they can get back to their best.
The Steelmen fell to a disappointing defeat to Dundee at the weekend to end their three-game winning streak, with boss Stuart Kettlewell admitting his whole squad had an off-day.
But ex-Rangers star Halliday – who didn’t feature last season as Motherwell ran the Hoops close in every game, drawing at Celtic Park and losing narrowly twice at Fir Park – believes they are capable of causing Celtic problems, if they can rediscover the form they showed before the international break.
He said: We are under no illusions we’ll need to bring our A game and show a vast improvement to Saturday.
“It’s going to be a difficult challenge, of course. I’ve not been involved for Motherwell in a Celtic game but I feel they have always been competitive games.
“They have always been tight. Celtic have came out on top in a lot of them but there’s been a theme of a Stuart Kettlewell Motherwell being well in the games.
“We’ve only lost twice by more than one goal, and you look at the one at Fir Park last year when Celtic scored a couple of last minute goals.
“It’s going to a difficult task, they are a very good team. But I think we’ve shown we are a good team as well.
“As players, we over-criticised ourselves and it maybe effected us for three or four days.
“We’re always told to enjoy the night after wins and then get back to work the next day.
“It’s got to be the same with defeats. The best price advice I ever got as a youngster was you can’t get too high or too low, you just need to dust yourselves down and go again. It’s simple but it’s true.
“That performance on Saturday was unexpected and we’ll analyse where it came from.”
Halliday, who netted his first goal of the season in the win over Hibs earlier this month, was frustrated with the display against Dundee and knows they can’t afford a repeat in the live Sky Sports clash.
He added: “One mistake seemed to spook us a little bit and it was one after the other.
“That’s not what we’ve been over the last couple of months. It was extremely disappointing.
“We’re not going to kid on and say we were unlucky, we need to try to bounce back against a difficult opponent this week.”
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