Celtic will have to face off against Borussia Dortmund without star defender Cameron Carter-Vickers. The USA Internationalist was absent for the 6-0 win over St Johnstone with an injury to his toe. However, there had been hopes that he would be fit for the second match of Celtic’s UEFA Champions League campaign.
Unfortunately, the central defender did not travel due to the injury meaning that Celtic will need to continue with a central pairing of Auston Trusty and Liam Scales.
Speaking at the media conference over in Germany, Rodgers confirmed that the player hadn’t travelled but that this would present an opportunity to someone coming into the team.
“Cam is not available. We’ll see what he’s like going into next weekend but he’s not here.
“Clearly he’s a top class player for us. He’s missed a little bit of Champions League football in his time.
“Five of the 12 games that the club has played, he’s unfortunately not been able to play in.
“But we’ve got other players. It’s always an opportunity for someone else to come in and hopefully we can get Cam back sooner rather than later.
“But like I say, we can’t overthink it.
“We will rely on a collective. There’s not one player that brings our results and how we’ve been this season.
“Of course he’s a very important player, Cam. But for us to get a result, it will be by the collective.”
Ex-Arsenal defender Trusty, a £6m acquisition from Sheffield United, was impressive at the weekend alongside Scales and it will likely be a battle for the pair to see who features beside Carter-Vickers upon his return to fitness.
There may be something in the notion that this is short term pain for longterm gain for the defender. Missing the game against Dortmund may mean that CCV is able to play consistently after allowing his injury time to heal.
We paid 6M for Trusty and very sensible piece of business, especially if we have now a CB who can play in either the left or right CB positions?
Thought maybe rocki could provide that also, but with him being so injury prone, then not a huge surprise that Rodgers, may feel he couldn’t depend upon him?
Will be a huge test for our CB pairing, but that would have been the case even if CCV was available, so nothing really new to be that concerned about imo?