Ange Postecoglou has stated that Celtic will only make a decision on a potential Glasgow derby postponement after they have looked at how many call-ups they receive.
There has been much talk over the rule that will allow the Hoops to postpone if more than 3 first-team stars are on international duty. It’s expected that Kyogo Furuhashi, Reo Hatate, and Daizen Maeda will head off with Japan at the end of the month. Tom Rogic is also likely to depart with Australia.
If these call-ups come to pass, only then will Celtic have an option to postpone the game. They could also postoone games against Hearts and Dundee United if the SPFL allows.
However, for now, Postecoglou has dismissed the chatter and insists there is no decision to make until the call-ups have actually been made. That, he says, is when the Hoops will give their verdict.
As quoted by the Daily Record, Ange said: “It’s not a problem yet. I could spend hours thinking about what we’re going to do, strategise and having meetings about it – then in the end find out that only one player gets selected. So I’m not going to worry about it.
“We’ll plan as we always have, that when we lose our players to international duty we’ll crack on and play the games we need to play. As it stands, none of the players have been selected yet. If that happens, we’ll look at it then.”
Celtic have no decision to make, but chances are they will in time
It makes sense for Celtic to wait. The truth is they can’t exactly lodge an appeal when players have yet to be called up just on the assumption that they might do. Waiting for the official word is likely to put them in a stronger position further down the line.
It’s an interesting debate to be had too. There are undoubtedly pros and cons to be had on both sides of the argument. For example, if we agree to move it back further, then we could have all of our best players available to us. However, we could allow Rangers to pick up early momentum in 2022 whilst we could be struck by unfortunate injuries that make us just as weaker.
Alternatively, we allow the game to go ahead and the positive would be that we can hand Rangers a massive blow early into the title run-in. Something we’re in desperate need of doing. The con obviously being that we would be missing some top players in the final third.
Ange is really keeping his cards close to his chest on the route Celtic will go down. This has undoubtedly been discussed within Parkhead. There is no way this isn’t something the manager and CEO have already discussed. There will have been plenty of planning put into this already.
Of course, how the SPFL would react to any postponements would be interesting to note. After all, there won’t be many free mid-weeks between now and the end of the campaign. They’ll also have to take into consideration the adverse weather at this time of the year and how that could affect fixtures.
But the option is likely to be there for Celtic to make the request. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that.
In other news, How David Turnbull is feeling about Celtic rehab as Ange provides pleasing update
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