The latest on Celtic's Josip Juranovic and his hamstring injury

By John McGinley

October 15, 2021

Josip Juranovic won’t be available for Celtic this weekend when the Bhoys play away to Motherwell in the Scottish Premiership.

The Croatian international picked up a hamstring injury in the match at home to Dundee United last month and has been rehabilitating ever since.

Despite Ange Postecoglou’s promising injury update on a number of players earlier today, he did confirm that Juranovic wasn’t quite ready to return to training or feature for the club in matches.

However, the right-back isn’t expected to be out for a significant amount of time. Postecoglou declared he was coming to the “tail-end” of his rehab, meaning he could join training sooner rather than later.

Like some other summer signings at the club, Juranovic has yet to really have an extended spell in the team in his natural position. In fact, he’s only played two full 90 minutes at right-back.

The sooner we get him back up to match fitness and in the match squad the better, despite the efforts of Academy graduates such as Anthony Ralston and Adam Montgomery.

Juranovic still has the best long-term upside and potential of all the Celtic full-backs. A regular for Croatia throughout 2021, he really could be a future star in green and white.

His position is arguably one of the hardest to execute in Postecoglou’s tactical system. With the full-backs tasked with playing centrally and committing themselves forward, positioning and game intelligence is key.

Juranovic will need time and patience when he comes back into the team, but improvement and familiarity with what’s needed under Ange will only come with minutes on the pitch.

In other news, Ange Postecoglou finally has a real Celtic squad to choose from.