Celtic have been dealt another blow heading into this Saturday’s Glasgow Derby with government officials rejecting the club’s request.
The ongoing international break has been an absolute disaster for Celtic. A number of players around the world have ended up getting infected over the past week or so and the Hoops have had it worse than most clubs.
The first to go down was Odsonne Edouard who tested positive after reporting to Clarefontaine for France under-21 duty. The second was Nir Bitton, who probably should not have been in the Israel squad in the first place after having suffered an injury just a week ago against FK Sarajevo. His international teammate Hatem Abd Elhamed also tested positive yesterday. And we want to give all of them our best wishes and hope for the quickest recovery possible.
In the midst of all this, one man who was ruled out despite not testing positive for the virus is Ryan Christie. The Celtic midfielder was ordered to spend 14 days in isolation after he was adjudged to have been in close contact with Stuart Armstrong, who did test positive while on Scottish national duty.
Of course, this was a massive blow to Celtic who cannot afford any more heading into the Glasgow Derby. The player maintained that he had done nothing wrong and the club had made a plea for Christie to be given the all clear if he did not end up testing positive himself.
As it turns out though, those request appear to have been rejected by the Scottish government health experts. The Daily Record reports:
"Record Sport under-stands Celtic’s top brass are bitterly disappointed government health experts have not given Christie the all-clear to face Rangers this weekend – despite the Scotland star recording a string of negative tests since being forced to leave Steve Clarke’s squad.A club source said: “We’ve been badly affected over the international break and the situation with Ryan is particularly difficult to understand.“But the team has a big game to focus on this weekend and we have to get on with it.”"
If the midfielder is indeed unavailable on Saturday, which is looking increasingly more likely with every passing day, it means that the club are confirmed to be without Nir Bitton, Hatem Abd Elhamed, Christie himself and James Forrest. While Albian Ajeti and Odsonne Edouard are major doubts at this point of time.
Safe to say that the situation is far from ideal. And it will be interesting to see how Neil Lennon sets his team up with not many options to bring off the bench.
Unfortunately, the international break is not over yet with another set of fixtures coming up. And at this point, Celtic will be lucky if no more players end up testing positive or getting injured over the next few days.