Celtic have an incredible total of 24 international call-ups throughout the club for the upcoming fixtures.
Impressively, seven of them are currently out on loan. The rest of the 17 are currently in the Celtic first-team or around the reserve squad.
The Hoops have a total of six players out on international duty with Scotland. Scott Bain, James Forrest, Oliver Burke, Kieran Tierney, Callum McGregor, and Lewis Morgan are all in Alex McLeish’s squad.
Celtic published an infograph on their official Twitter account of the international players who have jetted out.
The only call-up that had to eventually drop-out was indeed Nir Bitton. He had initially been selected by Israel to participate in matches against Slovenia and Austria respectively.
Unfortunately, however, the Israeli FA has confirmed on Twitter that he’s dropped out. There has been no further clarification on whether the injury is severe. So whilst there were 24 call-ups, his omission takes the number of players currently away to 23.
A healthy bunch of internationals
Other than that, however, Celtic have a massively healthy batch of talent heading off. It’s interesting to see that Dedryck Boyata is also definitely away with Belgium after missing out in the win over Dundee on Sunday.
Celtic’s reserves and youth players are also hevily represented here.
The Scotland under-19s face Turkey, Cyprus, and Portugal in a triple-header of Euro 2019 qualifiers. In that squad, Celtic are represented by Jack Aitchison, Kerr McInroy, Robbie Deas, Daniel Church, Ryan Mullen, and Ewan Henderson.
Players struggling for game-time have also been selected. Timothy Weah heads off with the USA under-23 squad. Vakoun Issouf Bayo, who has yet to play more than a few minutes for the club, is away with the Ivory Coast under-23 squad also.
Celtic can be proud of such a terrific quantity of their talent plying their trade at international level. It shows the club are in a good place with young talent in particular.
Neil Lennon has said he’ll be biting his nails over the next two weeks. When you read some of the names on that list then no wonder.
Of course, there are still key players staying at home. The likes of Tom Rogic, Odsonne Edouard, Scott Sinclair, and Filip Benkovic are going nowhere. At least those are a few names for Lennon not to worry about.
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