'Pressure is on Celtic, not Hibs', says Dean Gibson ahead of Celtic Park showdown

Hibs Women boss Dean Gibson insists the pressure is all on Celtic when the two teams meet at Celtic Park on Saturday.

Hibs defender Leah Eddie in action against Celtic's Clarissa Larisey during the SWPL Cup meeting between the two sides in November. Picture: Craig Doyle / Hibernian Women

The men’s international break means a rare Saturday 3pm kick-off is available at another big stadium and with there not being much between the two sides in recent games against Fran Alonso’s team, Gibson is hopeful of taking advantage of the situation.

"I think the best games in the league are us against Celtic. Other people might disagree but the games always seem to have everything.

"There’s no pressure on us on Saturday. We felt the pressure on Wednesday night; you don’t want to lose at Easter Road, they don’t want to lose at Parkhead.

"We’re going to go there and try to upset their party and I think we’ve got a good chance, a realistic chance of doing that. The pressure is on them and it’s up to us to try to get a result.”

Gibson was able to name the same starting team for the third game in a row against Partick Thistle on Wednesday night, with the side producing a third consecutive victory as well.

"This was on the back of the Spartans defeat, we just changed a few things around. We changed up the formation and it’s worked. We’ve scored 12 goals in three games so it would be very harsh of me to change the team but we had players like Shannon McGregor, Kirsty Morrison, and Ria McCafferty on the bench against Partick.

"That shows you the depth of squad we’re now getting. Eilidh Adams is back from injury as well. So yeah, it’s hard to pick an eleven but when the team is winning that makes my life easier because I can pick the same team but it also makes it hard because I don’t want to keep people on the bench.

"We’ll see what Saturday brings because it was a big pitch on Wednesday night, a heavy pitch as well, and the legs might be a little bit tired.

"We’ll see how we are today in training and we might make a couple of changes.”

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