ANGE Postecoglou tonight admitted that Celtic could be without both Kyogo Furuhashi and Tom Rogic when they play Rangers on February 2.
The SPFL have bowed to the wishes of the vast majority of cinch Premiership clubs and agreed to move the winter break forward.
The top flight will now shut down after the matches on Boxing Day.
The Old Firm game at Parkhead that was scheduled to be played on January 2 will now take place exactly a month later.
But the new date means that Australia internationalist Rogic and Japanese striker Furuhashi will be on international duty with their countries.
Asked if the pair would be away when the Rangers game is played after Celtic had been held to a 0-0 draw with St Mirren in Paisley last night, Postecoglou said: “If they get called up they will be.
“There is a lot of violin playing around the place, we are not going to be one of them.
"I am very supportive of our club's stance. It makes sense to me to use the natural break.
"I have said all along that fans are an integral part of this game.
"If having that break gives us a chance, without guarantees, to get them back in it's much better.
"I don't like playing closed doors - fans are an important part home and away.”
Celtic now trail Rangers by six points in the Premiership following their draw with an understrength St Mirren side at the SMISA Stadium.
Postecoglou added: "We should have won the game. We created enough chances and we dominated but we lacked quality in the final third to finish them off.
"It wasn't a night when everything went right for St Mirren because we did a lot wrong. It wasn't all good defending, it was also our own finishing.
"We had enough chances to win a few games. If you don't take them, that's what you get. It's not down to personnel. We had good chances for the guys out there to take them.
"We should have won and if we'd more composure and people had been stronger in their intent, we would have done.
“That’s been evident for a long time now, that we need a stronger squad. That’s not just tonight. That’s not why we didn’t win tonight, we should have won tonight, we had enough of the ball, we had enough possession, we had enough chances, irrespective of all the other factors.
“Even if we hadn’t won tonight it doesn’t stop the fact that at the moment we have got 11 guys who are injured. Any squad would have been challenged by that.
“But for me I still think we haven’t had enough quality in the squad to be able to rotate players through a heavy schedule. That isn’t surprising. It was always going to take more than one window to get the squad we wanted. That is logical. Tonight doesn’t change things.”
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