Celtic have effectively been given permission to take a brief winter break in January after the Scottish Professional Football League agreed to the postponement of a fixture with Kilmarnock.
Neil Lennon's side had been due to play Kilmarnock at Celtic Park on Saturday, January 11, but the game has now been pushed back to Wednesday, January 29.
Top flight clubs have the option to take a winter break and postpone games in the first two weeks of January on the agreement the fixtures are then re-arranged for midweek dates later in the month. It means that after the festive fixtures are complete - Celtic play Partick Thistle on January 1 and St Mirren on January 5 - the Parkhead side will take a 13-day break before returning to action on January 18 when they host Motherwell. Last season Celtic travelled to Marbella, where they beat Steaua Bucharest in a friendly, but it remains to be seen if there are similar plans for this January.
On-loan Celtic forward, Tony Watt, meanwhile, just cannot get a break it seems. The 19-year-old believes the Belgian press have been out to get him before he even kicked a ball for Lierse this season.
He has been sent home twice from training after run-ins with manager Stanley Enzo who has publicly criticised the youngster's work-rate and application. But the striker, whose goal against Barcelona last October in the Champions League catapulted him into the public eye, believes he was unfairly judged by the Belgian media before he had the chance to do anything on the park.
"I never got a fair chance from the press, before I'd even kicked a ball [saying] I was lazy, I don't think that's fair," said the player who made the move to Belgium on the final day of the transfer season.
"I'm just a young lad, I should get time to settle in. It's hard being away from home. I started off with negativity around me and you need to fight that. But I will do my best to succeed here in Belgium so I can become a better player for Celtic."
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