The positive Celtic injury news that may have gone unnoticed on Wednesday

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There was a welcome injury update delivered by Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers on Wednesday.

Rodgers spoke to Celtic TV in a lengthy interview ahead of his side’s return to action this weekend. Among his many answers was the latest on the fitness of his Hoops squad. He delivered some well-covered news of Maik Nawrocki nearing a return, while there is some other stuff was can dig in to.

“He’s trained now over the course of the last week or so,” Rodgers said of the Polish defender. “So we’ve virtually only got Stephen Welsh who is out, and Liel Abada, that will hopefully be back in December.

“So thankfully that’s starting to ease off and we’re getting numbers back in what is going to be a busy part of the season.”

So not a lengthy update from Rodgers. But we do know that Nawrocki has been back in training over the break. From that, we can surely expect to see him feature in a match before the next international break.

It will, however, have to be one of our five Premiership encounters. Nawrocki isn’t registered to play for us in the UEFA Champions League group stage. (UEFA)

Stephen Welsh and Liel Abada are, however, both seem unlikely to make it back in time for any matches.

One player who we have very much been in the dark about over the past ten days is Daizen Maeda. The attacker pulled out of international duty with Japan during this break and an injury was known to be the reason.

That was strange given that Maeda hadn’t shown any fitness concerns in his 88-minute display against Kilmarnock. He was even seen typically charging after the ball in the closing stages of the match.

From Rodgers’ update is seems pretty clear that there is nothing major to worry about with Maeda. If there was, he would have included him alongside Welsh and Abada.

We can probably even expect the Japan international to feature this weekend at Tynecastle. That’s the kind of game he should be well suited to.

In other news, this weekend’s unusual Celtic kick-off explained as complex Sky Sports issue arises