Matthew MacDermid will referee his first Celtic match on Saturday when the hoops host St Johnstone in the SPFL.
A product of the prolific Lanarkshire Refereeing Association he took charge of 10 Premiership matches last season, finishing up with Micky Beale’s side winning 3-0 away to St Mirren.
This season MacDermid has refereed three League Cup ties, one Championship match and Motherwell’s home win over Hibs.
For additional support on Saturday he will have Andrew Dallas, also from Lanarkshire, in the VAR room to ensure that he stays on the straight and narrow towards building a long and lucrative career in refereeing.
All of the big name referees are out of the firing line this weekend with one of Crawford Allan’s favourites already preparing for the Glasgow Derby on September 3.
Celtic go into the match with something of an injury crisis in central defence with Maik Nawrocki joining Cameron Carter-Vickers and Stephen Welsh on the sidelines with all three likely to miss the Glasgow Derby on September 3.
After one match as a Celtic player Gustaf Lagerbielke will have to lean fast with either Liam Scales or Tomoki Iwata as his new defensive partner.
Bottom of the table St Johnstone have home defeats from Ayr United and Stirling Albion on their record for the season with new boss Steven MacLean already under serious pressure.
The Perth side shouldn’t pose Celtic too many problems but it is important that the hoops defence builds up some sort of understanding followed by a week on the training ground to prepare for Ibrox.
After that Rodgers can take stock of where his squad are during the international break, after hosting Dundee on September 16 it is straight in at the deep end with the Champions League returning.
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