Celtic are waiting on the availability of defender Cameron Carter-Vickers after he was substituted at half-time during Wednesday night’s 4-1 win over Hibernian.
Carter-Vickers was replaced by Nat Phillips at the interval. Manager Brendan Rodgers confirmed in the aftermath that he had felt a hamstring issue but was taken off as a precaution.
Now, the Celtic boss is waiting to see if he fully recovers for the Scottish Premiership trip to Ayrshire on Sunday.
Celtic squad news ahead of Kilmarnock
Rodgers told Sky Sports on Friday afternoon when asked about the squad’s status: “They’re in a good place. We’re just checking on one or two. Cameron Carter-Vickers, who came off, we’ll just see how he is. Apart from that, we have no-one new coming into the squad.”
In his media conference, the Celtic boss added: “We’ll assess Cameron over the next couple of days. He didn’t pull his hamstring but we just had an MRI scan on that just to make sure he’s okay. We’re just waiting on the results of that. If the scan shows nothing he has a chance of playing.”
Thankfully there are no fresh issues aside from the doubt around the USA international.
Carter-Vickers sitting a game out would be far from ideal but if it helps prevent a more serious injury then he must be rested. Notably, he was not seen in any of the training pictures published today.
Nat Phillips is a contender to come into the starting eleven alongside Liam Scales. Rodgers has also praised the training contributions of Maik Nawrocki and Gustaf Lagerbielke.
Nawrocki isn’t registered for the upcoming UEFA Champions League clash at home to Feyenoord so it might not make much sense to bring him in if Carter-Vickers is also going to be rested for the mid-week fixture.
Fans have been eager to see more of him after his summer move from Legia but injuries have severely hampered his progress.
It seems more likely at this point that Rodgers will stick with defensive consistency until the winter break when things can then be re-assessed.
In other news, Celtic have issues but the ‘club in crisis’ narrative being spun by usual media critics is absurd.
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