DAVID Martindale has argued that Celtic’s second choice side is still strong enough to beat most teams in Scotland - and revealed that he would have loved to have taken Dane Murray on loan to Livingston this season.
Brendan Rodgers rested a raft of regular first team starters in the William Hill Premiership match against Martindale’s men at Parkhead this afternoon ahead of the Champions League play-off second leg match against Kairat in Kazakhstan on Tuesday.
However, the Scottish champions still ran out comfortable 3-0 winners over their promoted opponents to move two points clear of Hearts at the top of the league table and seven ahead of their city rivals Rangers.
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Martindale, whose men suffered their first Premiership defeat of the 2025/26 campaign, was impressed with the quality of player the hosts had on the field and stated that he was keen to take Murray, who spent last term at Queens Park on loan, to Almondvale this summer.
“These players are at Celtic for a reason,” he said. “Anthony Ralston came in today. But he’s been playing with Scotland and he's going to be playing Champions League football next week. He’s playing Champions League football most years.
“It's a big club, it’s elite level football. Anyone who is at Celtic is more than capable of playing for Celtic.”
Martindale added, “Look at Dane Murray, I would have taken Dane Murray in a heartbeat for us in the Premiership this year. I thought he was one of the outstanding players in the Championship last year. He was fantastic.”
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Asked about the incredible save which Livingston keeper Jerome Prior produced to deny Yang Hyun-jun in added-on time at the end of the first-half, Martindale said, “I actually thought he was offside in the first phase of that, but I went back to the iPad and watched it and realised he was onside. That suddenly became an outstanding save.
“Jerome's got that in his locker. When you come to games like this you've got to carry a wee bit of luck at times as well. Jerome comes up with a big save. But we never caused them any problems at all at the top end.”
