The CIS Cup enters the third round stage tonight with five matches taking place and a further three tomorrow. All matches on the first night see SPL sides facing lower league opposition but Celtic manager Gordon Strachan insists that any changes he makes to his side tonight, and there are sure to be a few, will not be made through disrespect to Livingston, winners of the competition in 2004.
Shaun Maloney, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, Mark Wilson and Barry Robson all missed Monday's training session with knocks but all except Robson should be fit for tonight if needed. Strachan has indicated that he wants his team to compete for all the trophies available to them this season and this has seen him implement a rotation policy.
His recent team selections have come under scrutiny as key players from last season's title triumph have been left on the bench in an apparently haphazard manner but Strachan insisted that he is working to plans made in pre-season: "We just had a thought this year that we want to try to win as many trophies as possible and to do that we have to keep everybody on their toes, mentally and physically."
"We thought this would be the best way of doing it." he said "and I really don't know how it's going to go. But at the moment we're trying to make sure that everyone gets a wee touch of it, so it's not 12 or 13 playing all the games and you're asking guys to come in who are cold.
"When the squads were smaller, with 13 or 14 players, you only had to explain to one or two. But now you can keep 17 players reasonably happy but you need a squad of 22." said the Celtic boss "Whether we are right or whether we are wrong, it's a decision we've made and at this moment the camp is happy because we're winning and the camp understands what we're doing. It's been explained to everybody how we're going to do it, so there are no grey areas. It's a wee change and I do feel I have the squad now to be braver in these decisions."