CELTIC will today find out whether Odsonne Edouard, the club’s only available senior striker, will miss the rest of the festive fixtures after he pulled a muscle in last night’s win over Motherwell.
The 20-year-old striker left the field in pain during the first-half of his side’s 3-0 win at Parkhead, a result which took the champions back to the top of the Premiership.
Brendan Rodgers, the Celtic manager, admitted that he had no choice but to wait and hope that Edouard will be declared fit for Saturday’s home game with Dundee and the following two huge away Premiership matches, at Pittodrie and Ibrox.
Rodgers said: “We’ll see; he just felt a tightness around his abductor so we’ll assess that in the next 24 hours. It’s where we’re at and there’s not a great deal we can do.
“It’s been unfortunate for Odsonne because he’s had to play a lot more games than I’d have wanted him to because he’s been the only real striker but we have others who can fill in and we’ll always come up with a team we think can get a result. But, hopefully, he’ll be okay.”
“It's a concern when you lose any player but he's played a lot of games and we've not been able to rest him so it's probably a little bit of fatigue, but we'll see when he is in the next 24 hours."
Celtic had the game won by half-time thanks to goals from youngsters Anthony Ralston and Mikey Johnston, with a Scott Sinclair penalty in-between.
Rodgers said: “It was a good night’s work for us – we played very well, particularly in the first half. As you can imagine, we’re getting to the end of an exhausting period for us but the players were bright. We scored two good goals and it was a nice piece of skill to earn the penalty.
“After that we controlled the game and controlled the scoreline. It was great to see the young players come in and contribute, which will help their careers here.
“Anthony was aggressive – he kicked their players and kicked ours as well. James Forrest got clattered at one point but he also got forward and he took his goal really well
Rodgers paid a warm tribute to Scott Brown who played his 500th game for Celtic.
He said: “We gave Scott a round of applause afterwards in the dressing room because to play that number of games for a club like this here with the pressure is fantastic..”
Asked whether any more talks had taken place regarding the captain staying at Celtic or accepting a move to Australia, Rodgers added: “We speak regularly, but that’s between us.”
Stephen Robinson, the Motherwell manager, admitted that his team caused themselves too many problems but that more important games were coming up.
He said: “We were done by two individual errors. We don’t go with the runner at the first and then go to ground in the tackle for the second. The third I have to say was a magnificent finish. But if you switch off against Celtic for a minute they hurt you.
“We know have three big games coming up which will dictate whether we are looking up or down.”
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