It was always expected that some players were going to fall ill and the season would be disrupted in some ways, but this has all happened at the worst time for Scotland and Celtic.
Scotland will be without Stuart Armstrong, Ryan Christie and Kieran Tierney for their play-off with Israel this evening, while Celtic now have some serious issues heading into the game with the Rangers after the break.
Odsonne Edouard is already a doubt after he was tested positive on international duty, while a report from The Daily Record has suggested that Celtic’s pleas for an exception for Christie have fallen on deaf ears.
They quote Jason Leitch when he was pressed on the matter, and it doesn’t sound like there’s any hope here:
“The health protection team in Lothian treats footballers the way it treats workers in call centres, or you in your media job, or me.”
“We phone up the positive case, we ask the positive case their history, where they’ve been for two days prior to their symptoms beginning.”
“That’s sometimes very straightforward, sometimes – particularly in football – it’s slightly more complex and then they make a judgement about who they have been in close contact with.”
“I cannot intervene or second guess that that process is, that’s exactly how the process should work and footballers are not treated any differently in that bit of the process than any other member of our society.”
Obviously a lot of fans aren’t going to like this and you can make the argument that there are a lot of exceptions when it comes to football just to get games on just now.
Everyone is starting to realise that this season isn’t going to be fair and certain things will come down to luck, but it’s why Neil Lennon has amassed several players in each position so he has some depth in the squad to deal with it.
At least it looks like a decision has been made quickly, so it gives the club a lot of time to prepare and come up with a plan for the upcoming game.
