Neil Lennon delivered a promising injury update for Celtic supporters yesterday ahead of Sunday’s visit of Steven Gerrard’s Rangers, stating Kieran Tierney should be fit enough to play.
There have been serious fears about Tierney’s ability to feature given his lack of fitness in our last match against Dundee and subsequent withdrawal from Scotland duty.
Lennon though is pleased with his current status, although admitted he will be assessed over the coming couple of days.
Unfortunately though there are doubts about James Forrest, who picked up a muscle injury when playing for Scotland, and Mikael Lustig ahead of the fixture, severely impacting the right flank of the team.
As quoted by The Daily Record, the Hoops boss explained:
Kieran, obviously, we are going to assess him over the next couple of days and see how he is, but he is looking okay as regards the weekend.
We’re hoping James Forrest will train on Friday and Saturday.
In terms of the rest of them, Mikael Lustig got a dead leg and, again, that will take a bit of time.
Bayo got a groin strain and he’s being assessed, but Kris Ajer came through two games [with Norway] okay, so we are eachy-peachy really.
There are a couple of niggles there, but nothing too serious. Olivier is back training day in and day out and Tom is back on the grass.
He’s had a couple of really good days training, so, hopefully, both of them will be in contention for the squad at the weekend, which is great.
Fans are expecting a comfortable victory over Rangers on Sunday and to do that we’ll need our best players in the team playing at their peak.
It certainly wasn’t easy against Steven Gerrard’s side in our previous fixture at Ibrox and there can be no complacency about this one, with a chance to put a eighth league title in a row almost beyond doubt.
Thankfully it looks like our most important players are returning to full fitness, with the only core player currently sitting out training being Ryan Christie.
Do you think we will win Sunday’s derby? How do you see the match going? Have your say below…