When cash-strapped Kilmarnock bought Cammy Bell from Dundee United on Friday (the only one of their signings to have commanded a fee), most assumed he would go straight into the team against St Johnstone on Saturday. However, the goalkeeper was on the bench for the 2-1 defeat and even his impressive record for the Ayrshire club against the holders will not prevent him from being a substitute at Celtic Park tonight.
Bell was a key member of Kenny Shiels’ side when they humbled Celtic in the 2012 League Cup final and he also featured in a 2-0 league win at Parkhead later that year but manager Lee McCulloch, a former Rangers team-mate of the 30-year-old, will keep faith with the current incumbent Jamie MacDonald.
“I truly believe I’ve got two really good goalkeepers going for one position,” he said. “I’m looking for loyalty from the players so it would be wrong for me to strip Jamie of the shirt after such a good pre-season and a good first game.
“It would be wrong to do anything other than to keep him in goal. I’m looking for loyalty but how can I expect it if I’m not being loyal to the players? I was loyal in starting Jamie in the first game of the season.”
Bell accepted the decision with equanimity, perhaps just relieved to have left United (he drove to and from Annan to their training ground at St Andrews every day) after the Championship club put him up for sale on social media yesterday.
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“It got a little bit messy and I wasn’t best pleased,” he said. “I actually said [to United]I felt it had been handled poorly with the Twitter thing. I was disappointed it ended like that.”
Bell may have been unhappy not to be in the starting line-up tonight but he will have no fears about coming off the bench in an emergency. “I think we’d gone 57 years since we’d last won at Parkhead [when they triumphed in 2012],” he said. “I have a few good memories of successes against Celtic with Killie — the League Cup final win, obviously, but also the night Robbie Keane made his debut at Rugby Park and we beat them 1-0
“That last win at their place was a good team performance but it wasn’t one of my busiest nights there, oddly enough. Maybe I should try and play the lucky charm card.”
McCulloch, meanwhile, insists his players will not park the bus. “We won’t be gung ho but we won’t be sitting in,” he said. “We’ll make it a cup tie and have a go; there are different ways to do that.”