Celtic at home to Hibs in League Cup draw, HCTS works for early rounds at least

Celtic have this afternoon been drawn against Hibs in the last 16 of the Premier Sports Cup, or as it’s traditionally known the League Cup.

Celtic lost our grip on the trophy at this stage last season, losing to Kilmarnock in controversial circumstances last August.

As things turned out that defeat prevented Celtic from having a chance at retaining the treble from the previous season, won under Ange Postecolgou but Brendan Rodgers didn’t do too badly in the end winning both the Scottish Premiership and the Scottish Cup.

With Celtic out the way in the League Cup last season, theRangers took full advantage to lift the trophy themselves for the first time in their history and complete the set of Scottish Premiership (2021), Scottish Cup (2022) and League Cup (2024) making up the latest Ibrox club’s actual list of honours won.

Should Celtic regain possession of the League Cup this season it will mean that our club has more major honours that the combined total of the two Ibrox clubs combined.

TheRangers are at ‘home’ to St Johnstone, so they are guaranteed at least one appearance at Hampden for a cup-tie. The ties will be played on the weekend of 16/17 August and will be determined by television commitments.

Celtic will whip the funds from the bank accounts of those on the Home Cup Ticket Scheme (HCTS) and those who never seem to have any ‘luck’ in those mysterious ballots will be left with a wry smile on their face knowing that if it’s a Glasgow Derby final then their chances will as always be slim to say the least.

Celtic’s inability to operate a fair scheme that shares the tickets out for these games continues to both amaze and frustrate. For instance everyone on the scheme who never got a ticket last May should maybe find themselves at the top of the queue this time around.