Soccer: Celtic’s fringe players kept in the dark

Celtic manager Martin O’Neill sympathised with his frustrated fringe players who were denied a valuable run-out by last night’s CIS Insurance Cup blackout at Livingston.

O’Neill made five changes to the side who beat Rangers to increase their lead at the top of the Scottish Premier League to 10 points.

Neil Lennon, Johan Mjallby, Paul Lambert, Lubomir Moravcik and Bobby Petta dropped out to give Olivier Tebily, Momo Sylla, Jackie McNamara, Alan Thompson and Steve Guppy first-team action.

O’Neill was also desperate for Joos Valgaeren to get another outing under his belt after recovering from a knee injury before vital games against Hibernian and Valencia coming up.

But it was not to be as a Scottish Power failure outside the ground plunged Almondvale into darkness just minutes before kick-off forcing police to postpone the quarter-final match.

O’Neill said: ‘‘It’s not good for us in that we have prepared for the game and in terms of the side we have picked tonight.

‘‘Some of the players definitely needed a match and it will be disappointing for them and frustrating for us all.

‘‘We were prepared for the game - that was the big point - and the pitch is in good order so it was the night to play.

‘‘We had picked Joos Valgaeren to play again as quickly as we could as he felt no reaction and we wanted him to play.

‘‘After the confidence we got from Sunday, whatever side we had out we were prepared and up for the game.’’

The Scottish Football League have already pinpointed December 11 or 12 as the possible date for the rearranged tie.

That would leave Celtic having to play nine games next month and facing Livingston three times in just 14 days.

O’Neill has pleaded with the SFL to see sense and avoid giving his side a fixture pile-up over the festive period but he had another reason for not wanting to play the game so soon.

He joked: ‘‘Yes it’s disappointing really and I spent all the pre-match praising him (Jim Leishman) and saying how great they’ve been doing and suddenly they can’t get the lights on.

‘‘But we’ve found out it was an outside problem so it can’t be helped.

‘‘We had the fog before the St Johnstone game last season, but I honestly can’t remember any game I’ve been involved with where the lights have gone out like this.’’

Livingston manager Jim Leishman was also in jovial mood after the game that never was.

He quipped: ‘‘I’ve been here from day one and I’ve never had a power cut.

‘‘That’s sometimes been our plan at half-time when we’ve been getting beat, but we’ve never had to use it.’’