Celtic fans question possibility of Vakoun Issouf Bayo injury

By David Walton

July 3, 2019

Celtic fans are questioning whether yet another Vakoun Issouf Bayo injury is upon them.

The big striker was noticeably absent from the two games Celtic were involved in yesterday. Yesterday morning, a Celtic XI mauled a St Gallen under-21 side 9-1. That was then followed by a 0-0 draw between the “first-teams” of both sides later on that evening.

Bayo wasn’t involved whatsoever in either contest. What makes it all the more strange is that the big striker had just scored the winner in the previous friendly match against Wiener Sportclub. He could ideally have used yesterday’s friendly to keep his momentum going, but it wasn’t to be.

Vakoun Issouf Bayo was missing from both squads yesterday (Vagelis Georgariou/Action Plus via Getty Images)

Celtic supporters clocked onto it pretty quickly. There was no explanation given by Celtic TV during the game or Neil Lennon after it. In any case, supporters were certainly questioning the omission on social media.

https://twitter.com/CrillyBobc/status/1146179724219170817

A Bayo injury would be typical of our luck

Bayo and Odsonne Edouard had a golden opportunity last night to link up as a partnership. Or, at the very least, they should’ve done. The big Ivorian not being in the squad was a massive disappointment for Celtic fans.

It’s also extremely untimely if this is yet another injury holding him back. It was only days ago he was talking about his previous injury hell after picking up a knock on international duty (Daily Record).

Odsonne Edouard also failed to get off the mark yesterday (Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images)

Coming off the back of a spectacular goal in the last pre-season friendly before St Gallen, Bayo has every right to feel disappointed. Meanwhile, of course, he can see Leigh Griffiths banging home four goals in the morning encounter against St Gallen’s under-21s. As great as it is to have Griff back, Bayo will want to try and keep up himself.

Lennon will hopefully let us all know why on earth Bayo didn’t play. It surely can’t have been anything to do with tactics or something nonsensical like that. Pre-season games are all about just getting minutes under players’ belts.

Bayo will want to keep up with the returning Leigh Griffiths (Vagelis Georgariou/Action Plus via Getty Images)

It’s even more questionable when you take into account the fact that players such as Karamoko Dembele and Ewen Henderson were involved in both the morning and evening matches respectively.

It’s interesting that Celtic TV never looked to inform the fans of the omission. Ideally, Celtic would be more on top of stuff like this. But an explanation is inevitable in any case, and hopefully, it’s nothing too harmful for the striker.