Celtic make plan to avoid international break mistake

The last international break significantly disrupted Celtic as a team when several players were ruled out due to needing to isolate and Neil Lennon is worried about a repeat.

Day after day new news broke or more concerns were raised over positive tests within the various international squads during the previous international break. No one wants that nightmare repeated but international break looms ominously alongside rising virus levels across Europe.

With the likes of Odsonne Edouard, Hatem Elhamed and Nir Bitton all ruled out of matches after positive tests and Ryan Christie self isolating for his contact with Stuart Armstrong, the Celtic squad was hit hard for team selection and performances also suffered as a result.

As the Glasgow Herald reports, Neil Lennon is worried about what will happen in the upcoming international period. He has real concerns over his players contracting the virus or being in close contact with others who do so.

Celtic have some very rigid guidance in place and Lennon will be confident his players are following the advice and restrictions carefully. But he knows they will mix with players from elsewhere who may not be as well drilled in the safety routines. All it needs is someone else in the squad to have been at a party or mixing with someone who has.

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The club will continue its dialogue with the various national associations to try and avoid a repeat and no doubt will have been reinforcing the message to all the Hoops players to be careful and follow guidelines and restrictions rigidly at home and when away on international business. But as Lennon commented the worry remains:

"“It’s a major concern when they go away again.“We’ve been pretty stringent inside our own bubble and have had no positive tests for a long, long time.“Slowly but surely we are getting them back but you can see even in the throes of the game they are not fully match fit. Maybe the virus can take more out of you than you first thought.”"

Lennon also admitted that the club may also look at private jets for players as a contingency. In the last break Vasilas Barkas could have been stranded in Greece with the threat of airports there being closed:

"“It’s not ideal, but it’s something we can look at. It’s a big undertaking when you’ve got maybe 15 or 16 players away, but we desperately want to avoid a repeat of what happened the last time.”"

It’s good to know that Celtic are trying to cover all eventualities, with so many players involved internationally it’s a huge risk. The issues at the last break and the knock on effect on performance and results make it a priority to protect the players as much as possible.