BRENDAN Rodgers is sweating over the availability of key defender Jozo Simunovic for Saturday's first Old Firm match of the season after the Croatian-born was left out of the squad for last night's BetFred Cup win against Dundee with swelling on his knee. While the Northern Irishman hopes the Bosnian international will be fit, he said last night that he would have no hesitation in fielding Dedryck Boyata instead. The Belgian, who has also been suffering from a knee problem, played more than an hour of his first match since the Scottish Cup final as the holders booked their place in the last four. Moussa Dembele was another man omitted from Celtic's matchday squad, but Rodgers insists that the French striker - who returned from a long-term hamstring problem last Saturday - has merely been scheduled a hard week of training at Lennoxtown and will be ready to go come Saturday lunchtime.
“We will see how Jozo is," said Rodgers. "He had a bit of swelling on his knee. The medics tell me he should be fine but we didn’t want to aggravate it any more. I would have no doubts about putting Dedryck in. He’s been working hard - I could have maybe played him against Ross County but we felt this was probably the better game for him. He got a good hour in and it's nice to see him back, because he's a big presence in the team and very dominant.
“Moussa will be back on Saturday," Rodgers added. "Sometimes when you have midweek games, you play and then recover and don’t do a lot of physical work in between. We had to make a decision – come out of working hard in training to play for an hour, or stay behind and get four good sessions? That’s what we did. Moussa has had a good week and will be ready for Saturday."
Rangers will go into that Old Firm match with the benefit of an extra day's rest but Rodgers, who eulogised the performance of James Forrest - who now has four goals in his last two games - was delighted with how his side managed to conserve energy with the ball. "What we did very well tonight was we had a rest with the ball," he said. "I thought we controlled the tempo and that element of it very, very well."
His opposite number Neil McCann said he felt the scoreline wasn't a true reflection, and pointed to the non-award of a foul for the clinching third goal. “Celtic were worthy winners," said McCann. “But I do have a complaint over the third goal. We should have had a free kick but there no clear advantage and Celtic quickly got men behind the ball and broke for their goal. I didn’t think it was a 4-0."
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