CELTIC’S injury situation worsened yesterday during their 2-0 win over St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park with Ryan Christie, Odsonne Edouard, James Forrest and Mikael Lustig all picking up knocks.
Brendan Rodgers’ side restored their six point lead over Rangers at the top of the Ladbrokes Premiership in Perth thanks to late goals from Forrest and substitute Timothy Weah.
However, the double treble winners, who are already missing key first team players Filip Benkovic, Dedryck Boyata, Leigh Griffiths, Olivier Ntcham and Tom Rogic, were left counting the cost of the triumph.
Christie (ribs), Edouard (foot), Forrest (hamstring), and Lustig (Achilles) will all be assessed by Celtic medical staff today.
On top of that, Kristoffer Ajer was ruled out of the Premiership match against Hibernian at Parkhead on Wednesday night after getting red carded for a professional foul on St Johnstone replacement Callum Hendry in injury-time.
“Unfortunately Mika had an issue with his Achilles which got worse as the first half wore on,” said Rodgers.
“Edouard had an impact on the front of his foot. He’s in a wee bit of pain but hopefully he will be okay. James is more of a worry. He felt his hamstring a bit tight. We had to play the last 10 minutes or so with 10 men.
“Christie got a bang on the ribs, he could hardly breathe. Unfortunately for him, he was on my side so I kept shouting at him to keep going.
“Thankfully we added to the squad, which we needed to do, and we’ll get some players back hopefully. Listen, we’ll make do. We have some outstanding players who can play in those positions. We will assess it on Monday and see where we’re at.”
Asked about Ajer’s ordering off, Rodgers said: “These things happen. It’s unfortunate. He had nowhere to go with the pass and the boy has pressed him and he’s taken him down. I wasn’t sure initially if it was a red card, but, having seen it again, it was fair enough.”
Celtic had two penalty claims turned down by referee Willie Collum the day after their city rivals Rangers were controversially awarded four in their league win over St Mirren at Ibrox.
But Rodgers was unsure either incident – Oliver Burke went down after a challenge by Jason Kerr in the first-half and then Edouard suffered an injury after a Joe Shaughnessy clearance in the second – merited a spot kick.
“It was definitely a day for penalties, or supposed penalties, (at Ibrox on Saturday), but I haven’t seen the ones today,” said Rodgers.
“I was just so happy to play well and win. I’ll have a look, but we didn’t get them."
Speaking about the second claim, Rodgers said: “It would have been harsh. The defender is trying to protect his goal. It’s last ditch, he is stretching. He got the ball and then made the contact. If that was a penalty given against me, I probably wouldn’t be so happy.
“It was just unfortunate for us. Shaughnessy has shown his bravery to stop it. Maybe on another day it could have been.
"Thankfully we worked the ball well enough and quick enough to tire them and in the last part of the game, the spaces opened up for us."
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