John McGlynn aims to turn Celtic Park ‘toxic’ when Falkirk visit as boss reveals injury blow.

John McGlynn is aiming to turn the Celtic Park crowd “toxic” on Sunday when his in-form Falkirk team travel to Glasgow’s east end.

The Bairns, who beat Hibs 4-1 last time out in the Scottish Premiership, travel to Parkhead hoping to cause a shock having impressed against Martin O’Neill’s side earlier this month in Falkirk. The Hoops edged out a narrow 1-0 win but the performance from the home team merited at the very least a point.

Falkirk hope to turn Celtic Park ‘toxic’

Speaking ahead of Sunday’s match, McGlynn said: "You couldn't do anything other than respect Celtic, but I think, also, Celtic respect us a lot. Celtic are a different animal from playing here (at Falkirk) compared to playing at Celtic Park . However, we're not playing against Martin O'Neill's team of many years ago, with Larsson, Sutton, Hartson, Thompson, Lennon, Balde, Valgaeren - you can go on and on. We're not playing that team.

“But we are playing a team who, for 20 minutes destroyed a team (Utrecht) on Thursday and then got a little bit nervous, and then came out comfortable in the end. There is no Green Brigade, and that helps. That helps a lot, absolutely. So we've only really got the paper rustlers to start mumbling a wee bit amongst themselves. Hopefully we can turn the crowd and get the atmosphere a little bit toxic and try to win the game."

Falkirk themselves will have a reduced following in the ground with many supporters boycotting the league clash in response to Celtic’s away ticket pricing. The Bairns’ ultras group, Gate 20, have led the charge with over 80 per cent of fans telling the Falkirk Herald that they are not attending.

Giving a squad update, McGlynn confirmed that there was bad news heading into the Glasgow trip with recent signing Ben Parkinson facing up to 12 weeks out. The ex-Newcastle United forward sent the Bairns through in the Scottish Cup against Hearts but he may not play again this season. However, he did confirm that he’s had no concrete interest in any of his star performers.

"It's a blow," the boss said. "The estimate is 10 to 12 weeks post-operation. He's got a possibility of getting an operation on Wednesday, so he'll be pushing it a little bit (to play this season). There's still a bit of time there, but that's with everything going well.

“Not one person's come to me and said they've got an interest in our players. It's surprising but it's true. I'm going to just turn my phone off and come Tuesday morning, I'll be quite delighted to have everyone that we've got here right now. I wouldn't want to lose anyone because it's going so well."