Celtic defender Cameron Carter-Vickers has shared the full story behind his recent injury troubles for the first time.
The American underwent surgery at the tail-end of the 2022/23 season after being hampered by a knee issue for several months.
Carter-Vickers played his final game of the campaign in April as the Hoops beat Rangers in the semi-final of the Scottish Cup. He sat out the team’s final six matches, including the final, and only returned to the team at the start of this month.
The defender had been nursing the injury for a fair amount of time, with the Celtic support only getting to hear the odd report about his issue, operation and recovery.
But on Friday, Carter-Vickers spoke openly about the injury for the first time.
“It was quite a while last season,” he said. (Celtic YouTube)
“It was long before Christmas when I initially did it. The pain wasn’t bad consistently through it. It was lulls and highs of how bad the pain would be.
“It was definitely something that I needed to get sorted and now that it is I’m in a good spot.
“My understanding of the injury was that the likelihood was that it was never going to get worse. So it was mainly pain management. Some weeks, I wouldn’t train at the start of the week and just come in at the end.
“It was just about trying to manage the pain and then play 90 minutes on the weekend.”
So we can now safely say that Carter-Vickers was playing through the pain barrier for several months of last season. That’s a pretty major sacrifice that deserves enormous credit on its own.
But what is even more remarkable is that the defender was still rock solid during that period. You look back at the derby matches in particular and he was still immense. The 2-2 Ibrox draw and the 1-0 semi-final win in particular.
It’s a huge testament to him that not many Celtic fans even knew he was carrying an injury.
Carter-Vickers returning back to the Celtic backline in the past few weeks and looking as good as ever has been a big boost.
Celtic fans have realised not ever to take him for granted over the past two seasons. He’s the kind of guy that you notice a lot more when he’s not in the team.
Let’s hope he’s in Brendan Rodgers’ starting line-up as much as possible this season.
In other news, Barry Robson has been talking up Celtic ahead of Sunday’s match
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