Celtic will be without six key players for today’s visit from St Johnstone to Celtic Park in the final Scottish Premiership match before the international break.
Usually these breaks are dreaded by a Celtic support that seldom has as much passion and engagement in international football compared to watching Celtic, but this time it’s something of a relief.
Celtic’s Medical team
This will allow Brendan Rodgers and the medical team at Lennoxtown to work their magic and hopefully clear up our injury woes for the title run in and also the defence of the Scottish Cup.
Following on from Brendan’s media conference yesterday afternoon we now know the six first team Celtic players who are unavailable for today’s vital Scottish Premiership match against St Johnstone
They are as follows:
1. Liam Scales – A new addition to the injury list, the Ireland international left-sided central defender has pretty much played every minute of this campaign to date but has looked jaded in recent weeks. Perhaps it’s no surprise that he’s suffered a muscle strain in training and will have to sit this one out. Hopefully it’s nothing too serious and the rest will do him good. It’s unlikely that he’ll now be going away with Ireland.
2. Yang Hyun-jun – Not injured but sees out the second game of his two match ban after committing what Kenny Dalglish described accurately as no more than an indirect free-kick offence in the recent controversial match against Hearts. The fall-out from this is set to keep us all interested during the international break.
3. Callum McGregor – The Celtic captain is a big miss but according to Brendan he’s likely to be back after the break and available for the away trip to Livingston. His achilles/calf strain is something that Calmac often experiences at this time of the season, probably due to the incredible number of matches he plays season after season. Expect him to be on the bench at Livingston and all going well he’ll stay there and return for the huge Glasgow Derby at Ibrox.
4. Reo Hatate – A wasted season so far for Reo and how we’ve missed his influence in matches. Brendan confirmed yesterday that he’s on the grass and should be available after the international break. Highly unlikely he’ll be risked on the West Lothian plastic, so it might be a dramatic comeback at Ibrox for the hugely talent Japan international star. Celtic is clearly a better team with Reo playing.
5. Maik Nawrocki – The Polish U21 international central defender has had a stop-start debut season which has been plagued by numerous injuries. The current hamstring issue keeps him out today and again he’s probably going to have to sit out the first few matches after the break.
6. Luis Palma – Th Hoduran FA let the cat out the bag on this one, and that seemed to annoy Brendan Rodgers who is working to a shorter timescale than Palma’s national side believe. They did however receive medical advice and scans from Celtic. They say it’s a 3 to 4 weeks lay-off for Luis so anytime sooner is a bonus we’re not really expecting.
EXPECTED CELTIC LINE-UP AGAINST ST JOHNSTONE THIS AFTERNOON…
The one piece of good injury news yesterday is that Cameron Carter-Vickers is available for this afternoon’s match and is likely to play and also captain the side.
Accordingly Celtic Shorts expect Celtic to line up against St Johnstone as follows:
On the Celtic bench – Bain, Lagerbielke, Kobayashi, Ralston, Holm, Forrest, Kyogo, Oh, Kelly and Vata
COYBIG! Three points please! Predicted score – Celtic 3-0 St Johnstone…
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And on St Patrick’s Day tomorrow, COYGIG! You can do it!
It’s a big weekend for Celtic at Paradise today and at Airdrie tomorrow. Best of luck to both Celtic teams…
