Carl Starfelt remains the only longer term injury concern for Ange Postecoglou as the Celtic manager confirmed at today’s Media Conference which was attended by The Celtic Star that the Sweden international defender will miss at least another two weeks, thus ruling him out of the Champions League double-header with RB Leipzig.
Both Cameron Carter-Vickers and Giorgos Giakoumakis will set out the visit from Motherwell in the Scottish Premiership tomorrow after but both have a chance of being ready for the midweek trip to Leipzig on Champions League duty. Reading between the lines would indicate that Giakoumakis possibly has the better chance of the two.
Sead Hakšabanović, Dazien Maeda and David Turnbull are all fine for the Motherwell game which will be the first of nine to be played in October.
The loss of the first choice central defensive partnership of Starfelt and Carter-Vickers will be a concern for Ange Postecoglou, although he wasn’t saying that today. Options are to go with the pairing that under-performed at St Mirren – Mortiz Jenz and Stephen Welsh – or to give a debut to Danish international Oliver Abildgaard, who Ange explained has benefited from the work done on the training pitch during the international break.
If CCV makes it for the Champions League match against Leipzig then there’s one place in the team alongside him to play for. Alternatively Ange could be looking at trying to get an alternative to the tried and tested CCV-Starfelt combo in place against Motherwell that can go on and do a job in the Champions League.
Pointless Leipzig might fancy their chances a little more if Cameron Carter-Vickers isn’t available.
With Giakoumakis missing Celtic will be loking to the likes of Kyogo and Maeda to redscover their scoring touch in October, starting tomorrow afternoon. Since the 4-0 victory over theRangers goals have only scored once in three matches while conceding six and that goal was somehwat harshly declared an own goal by UEFA, thus denying Reo Hatate the accolade. It’s certainly time for the frontmen to start hitting the back of the net!
More from Ange’s media conference and also Matt O’Riley’s to follow on The Celtic Star. We asked Ange about his Ajax comparision and chipping away in the Champions League taking time and being here to see it through and also about his relationship with Dermot Desmond, asking when the last time they spoke. Ange said that DD told him he’d only call after a defeat so he hadn’t heard from him in a year!
There was also some words from Ange today at the end of the Media Conference on Jock Stein’s legacy as the club gets ready to pay tribute to our legendary manager tomorrow on the 100th anniversary of his birth. The Celtic Star’s tribute comes in the form of David Potter’s new book which is titled The Celtic Rising ~ 1965: The Year Jock Stein Changed Everything and this is available to pre-order now (link below) with the book coming out on Friday 4 November.
