Celtic find themselves in the midst of a bit of an injury crisis at present.
The Hoops are in a pretty unfortunate place after a number of injuries were picked up in matches and training in recent weeks.
With huge domestic and continental challenges on the horizon, and the team reeling from a dire cup defeat to Kilmarnock on Sunday, it’s a tough place we find ourselves in right now.
Even more unfortunately, the vast majority of our current fitness issues concern central-defenders. Cameron Carter-Vickers, Maik Nawrocki, Stephen Welsh and Yuki Kobayashi are all currently out with medium term injuries.
With Carl Starfelt departing the club for Celta Vigo a fortnight ago, the situation is pretty precarious.
The Scottish Sun reported last night that Nawrocki picked up a hamstring injury in the closing stages of the Killie loss. The Pole isn’t expected to be back for our fixture at Ibrox in less than a fortnight.
The same outlet also say that Carter-Vickers is set to miss the derby with his hamstring issue.
Welsh is due to miss the next three to four months after damaging ligaments in his ankle while Kobayashi hasn’t featured since our tour of Japan.
It means that a central defensive partnership of Liam Scales and Gustaf Lagerbielke looks likely for the coming weeks.
Right-back Alistair Johnston has returned to training and is expected back imminently.
In a more attacking sense, Reo Hatate, Marco Tilio, Mikey Johnston and Hyeongyu Oh are all out with similarly medium term injuries.
Johnston’s back injury was said to keep him out for about three months, so we can maybe expect to see him back in the reckoning in about six weeks.
Oh was expected to be out for about six weeks with a calf problem, but may already have endured about a third of that lay-off.
Less is known about Hatate although he looks to be in a race against time to be fit for Ibrox. Tilio won’t feature in that match either with Rodgers recently suggesting he could be back for the middle of September.
So with at least nine players currently out, and almost all of them not insignificant injuries, we find ourselves in a tough place.
It’s time to see the character of the team in the coming weeks.
In other news, why Celtic should be cheering on Panathinaikos and Rakow this week
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