Brendan Rodgers has explained his decision to bring Cameron Carter-Vickers on against Lazio.
The American was introduced to the action for Nat Phillips during the 2-1 loss. Carter-Vickers hadn’t featured for Celtic in the best part of two months and some were left questioning the decision when he made an error that led to Lazio’s winner.
Celtic were pretty comfy at the hour mark when the contentious change was made, with Phillips having a solid game alongside Liam Scales.
The Liverpool loanee was on a booking from the first half. However, Rodgers has explained that his keenness to get Carter-Vickers involved again, and Phillips’ fitness situation, were key to the decision.
“We wanted to get him out there,” he told The Herald of the American international.
“He has trained for a little bit, it was just about getting him into the game, getting him a half hour. Nat (Phillips) as well was obviously coming back having not played a great deal. So, we managed to get the two of them some game time.
“These things [the mistake] happen. We have to be there to cover each other. We give the ball away in other areas of the pitch. We have to just learn from that.”
It seems like the decision to get Carter-Vickers 30 minutes was decided before the match. Given that both he and Phillips have had injuries very recently, that probably made a fair bit of sense.
It was just unfortunate that it was the former Spurs man who made an error that led to Pedro’s winner. It wasn’t even a glaring mistake or anything from Carter-Vickers, he just shouldn’t have turned back into trouble at such a critical moment.
Regardless, it is over and done with. If anyone has enough credit in the bank it’s Carter-Vickers. It’ll just be great to see him back properly and up to speed.
In other news, the Hearts explanation for shockingly low Celtic Tynecastle ticket allocation
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