Ange Postecoglou is ‘still waiting’ to see if Cameron Carter-Vickers will be available for the Celtic trip to face RB Leipzig on Wednesday night, while giving the rest of his squad a clean bill of health today.
Postecoglou has given an exclusive interview to club channel Celtic TV and, at the moment, cannot rule the American international in or out of the German test.
The Celtic boss had previously said his situation was being assessed on a day-by-day basis, so there could yet be good news on the horizon.
Speaking to Celtic TV, Postecoglou said today: “After the weekend’s game, everyone got through it really well from a physical standpoint which is important. We’re still waiting on Cameron, to see how he is. Carl Starfelt misses out. Apart from that, everyone seems to be in a good shape physically.
“We’ll recover from the game and prepare. This will be our routine between now and the break. We kind of know what we need to do – the recovery process will be important with all the football we have. And then how we give the players feedback on games and how we prepare them.
“It means limited time out on the training field but we still want to maximise the quality of our football there. But most of it will be getting into the routine of recovery and review.”
Understandably there will be a deadline on the Carter-Vickers call – they likely won’t want to put him on the plane tomorrow if he has no chance of playing. If he makes the trip, it means the decision could be a very late one.
Many fans are eager to see him return to the starting line-up and calm down a defence that has looked rather shaky in the last couple of matches.
Postecoglou didn’t directly name Giorgos Giakoumakis in the interview, but it seems he may well be on the mend too with this positive squad update, after picking up a knock on international duty.
I expect we’ll get more news on player availability at tomorrow’s press conference in Germany.
In other news, £96.2m exit reports engulf RB Leipzig ahead of Celtic trip.
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