Ryan Christie confirms his Celtic return timeline

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Ryan Christie’s recovery from injury has taken a while, but he provided fans with an update today.

Christie hasn’t been seen since the 4-1 win over Motherwell at Celtic Park. The attacker went off with a hamstring injury midway through the second-half. It was also from that stoppage that Motherwell scored their infamous classless goal against Celtic too.

But more pertinently, Christie has missed several important matches under Neil Lennon. He’s yet to feature for the Celtic interim boss, and will miss this weekend’s clash with Rangers at Celtic Park too.

But, speaking to Celtic TV today, he provided supporters with an update on his fitness plans.

“The first game I watched was Hibs away in the Scottish Cup and I was back in Inverness watching it. I found myself kind of screaming at the telly and when Jamesie scored the worldie I was nearly knee sliding on my living room carpet.

“You forget how much you get involved in the game. Obviously it’s always frustrating getting injured.

“When you finally overcome the first part and manage to get yourself back out and start running again, it’s always nice. Hopefully I can start trying to get back into a rhythm again and hopefully join training in the next couple of weeks and then really kick on.”

Back before the split?

Hopefully, Christie can recover in time for what will be an incredibly tough Scottish Premiership split this season.

Celtic likely face trips to Ibrox, Easter Road, and Pittodrie if all sides make the top half. There aren’t any easy games in that run, and having depth in the quality of Christie will be key for momentum.

We can at least take from this that he’s definitely missing the Rangers game. Once again, it opens up questions on who will take the number 10 position if Tom Rogic fails to recover too. Christie’s hypothetical return against Rangers would’ve allowed either he or Callum McGregor to slot into that role.

But Neil Lennon will have been preparing for this. He’ll have known for a while now about Christie’s injury and how long it could potentially take to mend.

It’s a reminder to us all that he’s not particularly close yet. Celtic have fixtures against St Mirren and Livingston after Rangers on Sunday. You have to fancy the Hoops to negotiate them in Christie’s absence.