Football : Dutchman's place under threat

Pierre van Hooijdonk could be set to pay a very public price for his pay deal row with Celtic. The Glasgow club's manager, Tommy Burns, looks set to drop the unsettled Dutch striker for tonight's live televised Premier Division match at home to the bottom club, Raith Rovers.

Burns has hinted that he will freshen up his side in the wake of last Saturday's defeat by Dundee United and, with the forwards Simon Donnelly and Andreas Thom fit again and included in the squad, Van Hooijdonk seems certain to be axed.

It was not so much Van Hooijdonk's lacklustre performance at Tannadice that angered Celtic, but the fact that he went public the following day over his contract row.

The Dutch international claimed he will reject any new offer and is prepared to sit out the remaining 17 months of his existing contract because the club refused to pay him as much as its top earner, Paolo di Canio.

Burns would only say yesterday: "With Simon and Andreas fit again, that gives me a few more options. I also have Chris Hay and Brian McLaughlin, who have both been left out recently, eager for a game.

"We came through 10 games in January, which was a hell of a lot, and I felt we got a bit of a reaction to that workload against United."

Van Hooijdonk was Celtic's top scorer last season with 32 goals and has 15 this term, but he lost a lot of public sympathy for his case when he said Celtic's recent increased offer of pounds 7,000 a week was "good enough for the homeless but not an international striker".

Burns does not want anything distracting his side from their title pursuit of Rangers, declaring: "We have a good chance against Raith to get three points and close the gap to four - so a real incentive is there.

"There is no problem with our confidence, despite losing to United - we were unlucky anyway. Whether you win or lose, at Celtic you are always expected to win the next game that comes along.

"The players did marvellously in January. We had to win all our games in hand after losing to Rangers at New Year and that was extreme pressure and we put all the points in the bag - six wins out of six - so now all we do is concentrate on the next game up."

Burns warned against dismissing Raith, saying: "They have battled away and got some good results and Iain Munro is now getting some reward for his work."

Steve Kirk is added to the Raith side which drew with Hibs last Saturday and Munro, the manager, said: "We are going to Parkhead with a lot of confidence. We've only lost once in the last six games - and that was to Celtic in controversial circumstances - so we're going there on a high."

One player who will not be featuring in the Sky Sports game will be the Italian, Enrico Annoni. The 30-year-old Roma defender flew back home yesterday after spending 48 hours in Glasgow looking over the Parkhead set-up and talking to Celtic about a move which would earn him a reported pounds 13,000 a week.