Partick V Celtic at Firhill Stadium : Match Preview

Partick V Celtic - view commentary, squad, and statistics of the game live.Stevenson fired up for Hoops clashRyan Stevenson hopes to fire himself up for Partick's clash with Celtic on Wednesday night by watching re-runs of his previous Hoops triumphs.Stevenson is one of just three members of the Firhill squad to have tasted victory against the Parkhead giants, along with Paul Gallacher and Kallum Higginbotham.The Jags forward was a second-half substitute for Hearts when they beat Neil Lennon's side 2-0 in November 2010 at Tynecastle, then put the seal on another win 11 months later with a late strike as the Jambos repeated that scoreline.But having swapped Gorgie for Glasgow's west end, the 30-year-old knows Thistle will need to be at the top of their game if they are to record their first win over their city rivals since 1995.Partick suffered a crushing blow on Saturday as Inverness knocked them out of the William Hill Scottish Cup.But Stevenson believes digging out the footage of those two Hearts successes could re-ignite his flagging confidence ahead of meeting Ronny Deila's men.He said: "I've only beaten Celtic twice in my career, so far. The last time I managed to get a result over Celtic with Hearts, Paulo Sergio was under massive pressure at the time and we needed the victory - but we managed to do it."So after the disappointment of the weekend hopefully we can get it together and galvanise ourselves."I'm not usually the type of guy who looks back on matches from the past, I'm more of a here-and-now type of guy. But now it's been mentioned, I might watch them back and try to take some confidence from it."Lyle Taylor netted on his return to the Jags line-up after sealing a loan move back to Maryhill from Scunthorpe. But it was not enough to stave off a 2-1 defeat to Caley Thistle.Stevenson admits it has been a "bad week" since that loss - but is desperate to ensure it does not become worse by tripping up against the champions again.He said: "We don't want to make it two defeats in the space of four days. We're not stupid enough to think it will be easy. We know it's going to be a very, very difficult match."But if we can get something out of the game it can give us a lot more confidence going into the rest of the season."We took a 6-0 spanking from them a couple of months back and it was not nice. I've been on the back of that a few times with Celtic and it's something I definitely don't want to happen again."The midweek clash was originally scheduled for January 1 but was postponed after heavy rains flooded the Firhill pitch.The re-arranged date has now cost Deila the use of injured duo Mikael Lustig and Kris Commons but midfielder Stuart Armstrong and winger Gary Mackay-Steven, signed on transfer deadline day from Dundee United, are "very close" to making their respective Celtic debuts.Teenager Liam Henderson sees the added competition within the Celtic squad as a factor he can use to push on his Parkhead career.Celtic were handed a tough William Hill Scottish Cup quarter-final draw against League Cup final opponents Dundee United at Tannadice on Monday afternoon. Deila's men also face Inter Milan in the Europa League this month while trying to fight off a Scottish Premiership title challenge from Aberdeen, who drew level on points at the top of the table on Saturday. And Henderson is pushing for further involvement during the busy schedule after starting three games in 2015. The 18-year-old said: "We're in all four competitions so hopefully that means the squad will be rotated, but I've been working really hard and if the opportunity comes, hopefully I can take it. "It's been good, the manager has thrown me in when we've needed to win games. Obviously scoring against Hamilton gave me a big confidence boost."

Source: PA