While the passionate support from the Celtic fans – Siwelele – at the Seisa Ramabodu Stadium makes it a tough venue for visiting teams, Khaile says that’s it’s a double edged sword in that the home side also feels an enormous amount of pressure to get results.

“Its going to be a tough game because Stars will be desperate not to lose another match, but as we are playing at home this is a game we must win.

“But sometimes we as players feel a lot of pressure to perform in front of our own supporters – like when we lost to Maritzburg recently.

“We need to focus on going out there and relaxing, enjoy ourselves, and then the goals and the results will come,” says Khaile, who along with coach Owen da Gama, will be facing his former employees.

It’s been a good season thus far for Phunya Sele Sele (currently seventh on the PSL table) thus far, although they have only taken a single point from their last three games (a 1-1 draw with Chiefs).

“The result against Chiefs was a good one for us, especially as we played most of the game with 10 men, now we must take that momentum and build as we play Stars – we want to end the year on a high note,” added Khaile.

For their part, Dinaledi will be looking to put to an end an uncomfortable run of form of late, which has seen the team losing all of their last four matches.

Consistency has been the Stars’ major downfall this season and the team has just never been able to get any kind of momentum going under coach Steve Khompela.

Skipper Stanley Kgatla concedes Stars have blown hot and cold this season, but says he cannot pin-point the problem.

“Inconsistency has been our problem, but if I’m honest there is no clear reason for this – there are no problems in the team, we just have to keep working hard.

“We are expecting a tough game against Celtic, they got a good result against Chiefs with 10 men, but we are feeling positive about getting a result. Its actually good for us to play against a side like Celtic, who are higher up on the table; rather than playing a side desperate for points.”

Kgatla also feels that playing in front of the Celtic faithful could be to Dinaledi’s advantage.

“Sometimes its good to play away from home – if we can put Celtic on the back foot early on then they will be under pressure from their own fans,” says Kgatla.

Stars will go into battle with the same team that did duty against Pirates, while Phunya Sele Sele will be without Johannes Motlhaping, who was red-carded against Amakhosi.