Mowbray faces crunch time with Celtic

Celtic boss Tony Mowbray will come under intense scrutiny over the next week as he faces up to the toughest eight days in his short managerial career at Parkhead.

Mowbray will lead his men out against St Mirren on Saturday as he looks to maintain the league leaders’ unbeaten start to the Scottish Premier League season.

But while a trip to Paisley can never be taken for granted, it could prove the calm before the storm.

After the clash with Gus McPherson’s side, Celtic face a home Europa League clash against Rapid Vienna in a match they must win after their opening loss in the competition to Hapoel Tel-Aviv.

But perhaps his biggest test comes three days later when his side take on Rangers in the first Old Firm derby of the season at Ibrox.

Mowbray’s only defeats this season came last week in Israel and in the Champions League qualifier against Arsenal, where Eduardo’s diving exploits stole the headlines away from a comfortable and expected Gunners victory.

Domestically his record of four league wins and one draw looks good on paper but Sunday’s last-gasp home win over Hearts, which came on the back of a home draw against Dundee United, was hardly emphatic or convincing.

They followed that victory with a more comfortable win over Falkirk on Wednesday in the League Cup.

But while the 4-0 scoreline suggests an easy night’s work, Mowbray – who quit West Brom for Celtic in the summer – admits he still faces plenty of fine-tuning.

He said: “We scored some good goals but there was still some frustration in our play. We did make some changes so it was never going to be easy. If I’m taking the positives, there was some good individual performances and some good goals. But we still have work to do on our team play.

“There weren’t many smiles in the dressing room after the game. There was a lot of hard talking. There were too many shots on our goal in the last quarter of an hour, it looked like Falkirk could walk through us. Our goalkeeper had far too much to do.”

Mowbray rang the changes for the Falkirk clash and the likes of Irishman Paddy McCourt, who scored a brilliant solo goal, and Polish keeper Lucasz Zaluska proved more than capable back-ups.

“Lucasz did very well,” said Mowbray. “Paddy has lots of ability and can score goals like that. It’s just the other side of the game that he has to work on. When you have three games in a week, you have to play these guys to see that you can trust them.”

Mowbray is likely to be without Aiden McGeady for Saturday’s match after he picked up an ankle injury but he is expected to be fit for the matches against Rapid Vienna and Rangers.

Meanwhile, Rangers will be looking to score their first league goal in over 180 minutes of league action after successive 0-0 draws against Motherwell and Kilmarnock.

They got back on the goal trail in Wednesday’s League Cup win over Queen of the South and manager Walter Smith hopes they can find the net in the home league clash against Mark McGhee’s Aberdeen, who were beaten by First Division outfit Dundee in midweek.

Smith said: “We have a big game on Saturday, but our next three games are all big. So we are ready for them. I was pleased with the Queen of the South victory. For 25 minutes we were excellent but then we let some slackness slip into our play.”

Elswhere, Kilmarnock travel to take on bottom side Falkirk, Hearts are at home to Hamilton, Hibs visit Motherwell, while St Johnstone aim for their first league win of the season at home to Dundee United.

Fixtures (1400 GMT unless stated)

Saturday

Falkirk v Kilmarnock, Hearts v Hamilton, Motherwell v Hibs, Rangers v Aberdeen, St Johnstone v Dundee Utd, St Mirren v Celtic (1130 GMT)