Celtic manager Martin O’Neill has given an update on the fitness of Jota, Alistair Johnston and Colby Donovan.
Celtic face Dundee today as they look to end a run of three straight defeats in the City of Discovery.
It has been a season of injuries for the Hoops, with Jota unseen since his serious ACL injury sustained at Tannadice in May.
O’Neill put an end to talk that the injury could be career-threatening.
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On Johnston, the interim boss said: “In the wider scheme of things, for the length of time he’s been out, hopefully it’s not too bad.
“But it has delayed things a little bit here. We were hoping to have him, I’m not saying for this weekend, but we were hoping to have him in a couple of weeks, maybe having played some bounce games.
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“That will just have to be parked and put to the side for the moment. It’s a shame.
“He went with the national side and was only ever going to do little bits of training, which is all he did. If we’d had a full quota of players here, then he’d have stayed with us.
“We felt there might be a benefit of being away with the national side, just in a different environment, as he hadn’t met up with them for some time.
“Obviously, they’ve got the World Cup, and he’s a big player for them. So, we all felt it was the best idea. It was only on the final day that he felt a bit of a niggle.”
“Don’t hold me to this, but there must be a fairly good chance that he [Johnston] will play here [Celtic] before the end [of the season].”
“He was on course, hoping that having come back from Canada, that we would have been able to have done something with him this week in terms of a bounce game.
“That’s been put on hold so I couldn’t tell you but again I don’t think he’s far away.”
O’Neill also confirmed that Colby Donovan is on track for a speedy recovery after a collision injury on youth international duty with Scotland.
On Jota, the 74-year-old said: “He’s been out for a long time. In his rehab, he’s had a couple of setbacks.
“I had a conversation with him about where he is with all of this. He had a consultation with a surgeon down in London a few days ago. He’s come back.
“Just when he thinks he’s going great, he gets a bit of a setback; it’s just the length of time that you’re out.
“These types of injuries, you think it’s straightforward, sometimes they’re not and you’re stopped in your tracks when you think you’re going well.
“I would be hoping that whoever is going to be in charge of the football club, that Jota would be ready for pre-season. That’s what I would be hoping for. It has been a fairly lengthy time.
“I don’t see this as being a career-threatening injury. If Celtic fans are worried because of the length of time he’s taken, I’d try and assure them that he will recover from this.”
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Cameron Carter-Vickers, Callum Osmand and Arne Engels have all also spent significant time on the treatment table this season.
O’Neill has navigated the issues expertly.
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