Ange Postecoglou has admitted Carl Starfelt’s Hamstring injury picked up on international duty with Sweden in his country’s 2 June Nations League encounter, may hinder the defender’s chances of seeing pre-season match action, but hopes the Swede, who struck up a strong defensive partnership with Cameron Carter-Vickers in Celtic’s title winning team will be recovered by the time the league flag is unfurled against Aberdeen on 31 July.
As reported in Scottish Sun, the manager has commented on niggling injuries for both Josip Juranovic, who was injured prior to the end of the season and Liel Abada, who it appears picked up a slight injury in training this week, but it’s Starfelt who looks to be the one who will see his injury impact on his ability to get a full pre-season under his belt.
“We’ve got a couple of guys with niggles. Obviously, Carl, and Josip, Liel trained well this morning. We had a hard session this morning, so he might have pulled up slightly. I haven’t spoken to him. But we’ve got nothing significant.”
“Carl is the one who will probably miss a lot of this pre-season. But we’re pretty confident we’ll have him back for the start of the season. Everyone else should be fine for the bulk of this pre-season, hopefully.”
Meanwhile Christopher Jullien made a rare appearance for the Hoops in a 7-0 friendly win over SC Wiener Viktoria, and if there remain concerns over Carl Starfelt’s ability to take part in pre-season matches, then opportunity now knocks for the French defender, who looked to on his way to newly promoted Bundesliga side Schalke last week, only for the player and club to be on a different page when it came down to Jullien’s wage demands.
Yet whether the manager including the player is a sign Jullien has a future at Celtic, or if it was an opportunity to put him in the shop window, is very much open to interpretation. And going by Postecoglou’s comparing of the player’s situation to that of Odsonne Edouard and Kris Ajer last season, you may well be tempted to consider the latter option may be the most likely, but as ever the Boss is keen to let it be known all players on the pre-season trip will be treated the same regardless of where they may or may not see their future with Celtic.
“That’s pretty much in Christopher’s hands. It’s about what he thinks is best for his own future. It was the same last year with Ryan Christie, Odsonne Edouard and Kristoffer Ajer when they were here and doing the same sort of things in pre-season.
“I think if you ask those boys they would say that I treated them the same as everyone else, and Chris is in the same boat. But again, with guys like that, I’m having dialogue with them and it will take its natural course.”
Niall J
