Reo Hatate is the third injury-hit Celtic star to be spotted back on the training pitch this morning after Cameron Carter-Vickers and Daizen Maeda both participated in training. But Reo wasn’t participating in the training session but was out on the grass doing his rehab work with the medical team at Lennoxtown.
The American international and his Japanese teammate have been greatly missed this season when not in the side and it has contributed to our poor form in some games.
In reality, after losing Carl Starfelt, Aaron Mooy and Jota respectively, whilst the recruitment has not been good at all, losing several key first-team starters at various points was always going to come at a price. Liel Abada is also still making his way back from an unfortunate injury he picked up on international duty with his country and that has hampered our forward areas too.
So that’s Abada, Hatate, Carter-Vickers and Maeda that has all been missing at various points this year so far, not taking into account the failure to replace the three aforementioned departures in the summer transfer window too. It’s virtually impossible to build any sort of momentum when that has happened and considering all this, the Scottish Premiership table has probably reflected this of late.
You cannot lose seven members of a Treble-winning team and expect it to be the exact same, even with a quality, experienced manager at the helm. Rodgers hasn’t covered himself in glory at times either, but by the same token, he’s working with what he has and has been somewhat let down by the club in terms of quality additions to replace the players who left the building at the end of our last campaign.
With players returning from injury it could not have come at a better time as we need all of our difference makers back pronto.
This is welcome news but it’s slightly misleading. Reo Hatate has NOT returned to training just yet, he is simply going through his rehab phase which will need to be successfully concluded before he re-joins his teammates for training.
Don’t expect to see Reo Hatate play until after the winter break.
Reo Hatate returns to training today 🙌🏼
A massive boost for the side 🍀 pic.twitter.com/ZjQQ5HwGVc
— Everything Celtic (@aboutceltic) December 12, 2023
Paul Gillespie
