Carl Starfelt went off injured against Livingston on Saturday afternoon and is now set to miss Thursday night’s Europa League match against Ferencvaros at the impressive Groupama Arena in Budapest. He’ll also sit out next Sunday’s Scottish Premiership trip to play Dundee at Dens Park but should be able to use the space provided by the international break to get himself ready for the League Cup semi-final at Hampden against current holders St Johnstone.
“I have an X-ray tomorrow (Monday) so we will have to look out for it (results), but it’s probably an easier stretch. That is still a couple of weeks,” the Celtic defender told fotbollskanalen.
Nir Bitton, in the starting elven due to a similar injury to Tom Rogic at Easter Road on Wednesday night, dropped back into the central defensive role when Starfelt had to go off and the Israeli is likely to play in that position in the Europa League this week.
Ange Postecoglou clearly had one eye on this vital European match when selecting his team for the game against Livingston, choosing to leave Kyogo on the bench and in reserve alongside fit again winger Mikey Johnston. Both started at Easter Road.
With £40m at stake from winning the league, it’s perhaps essential to make sure that Celtic’s focus is always on the Scottish Premiership even it that’s the case for just this one season. Still dropping 5 points from 6 to Livingston is just about as frustrating as it gets for the Celtic Support and the inevitable big win for theRangers followed yesterday. Anyone else think that that would have been a much closer encounter at Fir Park had that penalty hit the back of the net on Saturday afternoon?
Still, the news on both Rogic and Starfelt is at least encouraging in that they are going to be out for just a few weeks. Hopefully Kyogo does the business on Thursday in Budapest. By the way, Ferencvaros won comfortably at the weekend.
