The unique Celtic challenge facing Inverness as they launch 'frantic search' for Scottish Cup warmup friendly

Inverness are struggling to find warm-up opponents ahead of their clash with Celtic as their failure to make the Championship playoffs leaves them facing a unique challenge.

There had been fears Billy Dodds' team could face a clash of dates for their Hampden showpiece with the playoff final, the second leg of which is pencilled in for the same weekend, throwing a potential scheduling spanner in the works. But they are now facing the opposite problem as having missed out on the top four altogether, they have three weeks without a game before their date with Ange Postecoglou's team.

And the Daily Mail now say they are scrambling to find friendly opponents to keep themselves sharp for the final showdown. Chief executive Scot Gardiner said: "It's a real challenge for us to get meaningful games. Right now it's proving a very difficult challenge indeed. We could not do anything to prepare until we knew our play-off fate on Friday night.

"We gave our boys a few days off after the disappointment because they had gone seven games undefeated up until the Ayr setback. 'The plan then was to get straight back into preparing for the cup final.

"But we are now in a scenario where they will return to training with no games scheduled as yet. And it's a real challenge to get them at this stage of the season. Even in England there is such an intense programme of games, particularly with the Premier League, and it's the worst time of year to try to get a game that is going to give us the physical and mental challenge the players need. We are going into a game against the Premiership champions, who are a terrific team, so it's not ideal."

"We knew that would be the case if we didn't reach the play-offs. We will get something, but it's