While most of the headlines surrounding Cameron Carter-Vickers and Reo Hatate focused on their lack of availability for this weekend’s Scottish League Cup clash, a snippet from Brendan Rodgers towards the end of his media conference was actually reassuring.
Carter-Vickers and Hatate both limped out of last week’s trip to Aberdeen. The USA international was said to have felt a hamstring problem while Hatate is nursing a calf complaint.
Asked about their situations today, Rodgers suggested they’ll be back in the Celtic fold in a matter of weeks. Neither will be on the sidelines for a serious length of time.
The Bhoys boss said [Celtic FC]: “Obviously, they’re not available for this weekend so we just have to assess them and see how they are over the coming weeks.”
Pressed for a timeline and if the injuries were long-term, Rodgers added: “No. No, we have to just monitor it over the next week or two.”
That’ll be pleasing for those who worried that the pair might be missing for months after last week’s match. It’s obviously less beneficial for those who were pinning their hopes on both being available for the upcoming trip to Ibrox.
That is clearly touch and go at this stage of proceedings, so we’ll just have to wait out the next period and hope that at least Carter-Vickers makes it back into training soon.
Reports have indicated that Hatate could be out for up to a month so he’ll be a significant doubt to feature until mid-September. But it certainly could have been a lot worse for both, given the recovery time on some muscle injuries.
In other news, Brendan Rodgers provides update on transfer work at Celtic with ‘pipeline’ talked up.
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