Saturday marks the return to football - and it’ll have felt like a long time for those still stewing over the Rangers defeat.

But Celtic have four out of their next five games at home and this is the time to go and utilise that advantage to its full extent.

This is the first time in a long time at this stage of the season that there have been questions asked and when that is the case then at the very least you want to press home the favourable run of games on your own turf.

There is also the looming Europa League game against Valencia to consider. I think you want to be going into that game firmly on the back of some solid domestic results and with a bit of confidence about how you are playing.

And for all that Celtic have been poor on the road this term, their record at Celtic Park speaks for itself.

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And no matter what, and who is injured and who is out, I cannot see them slipping up against Airdrie on Saturday night.

I just don’t think that it will happen.

Of course you just never know in Cup football but I’d fully expect to see the benefits of the break and also it will interesting to see just what the reaction is on the back of what was a poor display at Ibrox to bring down the curtain on the opening half of the season.

And I would expect that we will see some of the new arrivals feature prominently against Airdrie.

Supporters will be itching to getting back to see a game and it will have felt like a long three weeks for everyone given that there hasn’t been any chance to get the defeat to Rangers out of the system and getting a glimpse of some new faces always gives everyone a lift.

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The fact that the English game hasn’t had a break should mean that Oliver Burke is ready to go straight in. I know he is short on match time and will need to get that sharpness back into his legs but the fact he has been working and training should mean that he is relatively fit.

Timothy Weah, too, I suspect will be involved. With Odsonne Edouard still out then I think that Weah looks like the likely successor to that role for now. Again, he will need time but I think if you are going to put them in then this is the time to do it.

Weah can hopefully take a bit of pressure off of Edouard and at the very least it will give Brendan Rodgers to work with. That hasn’t been the case this season with the way that Moussa Dembele left the club on the final day of the window and then with Leigh Griffiths being out of action.

Meanwhile, there hasn’t been the same ill feeling about this transfer window as there was in the summer and that in part comes with getting some business done early.

Not that I think Celtic are finished just yet.

I am also not overly surprised at the likelihood that a centre-half looks as though it won’t happen in this window wither. I think if there had been a suspicion that Dedryck Boyata would have gone now or that Filip Benkovic was at risk of being recalled by Leicester then I think Celtic’s hand would have been forced.

But the flip side of that is that if you buy before getting the one that you really want or as a quick fix then there is always the danger that it doesn’t go the way you want it to.

So it might not be a bad thing to wait until the summer to ensure that you are bringing in exactly the type of player that you want. In some ways you think that the ideal situation is to have players in and up to speed with the club in time for the Champions League qualifiers but it doesn’t look as though that is how it will play out just now.

But you would still think that a full-back is likely before the end of the window. with possibly one other.

The link with Scott McTominay is an interesting one although I am sure that there will be a few possibilities for him if Manchester United decide that he is going out on loan.

The middle of the park is probably where Celtic are best served so I wouldn’t have thought that bringing in reinforcements for that area of the pitch would be the priority.

But with Kieran Tierney out and long-term cover needed for Mikael Lustig then I do think that there will be plenty going on at the minute as the club look to bring in an experienced full-back.

Tierney’s ongoing issue is clearly causing some concern but the best thing is to try and nurse him back without aggravating the problem.