Celtic suffer massive injury blow ahead of Glasgow Derby

There is bad news for Celtic on the injury front once again, as they have suffered a massive blow ahead of Saturday’s all-important game against the Rangers.

Celtic have endured a horror start to their 10IAR campaign that has left them 16 points behind the Rangers at the turn of the year, although the Hoops do have three games in hand, which is their only saving grace at the moment.

They have the opportunity to turn things around on Saturday though when they travel to Ibrox on Saturday. Although the Hoops have been completely outplayed the last two times they came against Steven Gerrard’s side, they do have some good memories from their last visit to their cross-city rivals’ home ground.

They have been handed a blow in their quest to come out with a result from Ibrox though. Christopher Jullien endured an injury against Dundee United and it looks like he will miss Saturday’s game.

Neil Lennon appeared to confirm the same as reported by HITC. Asked about the severity of the Frenchman’s injury, he said:

"“We don’t know yet. It looks pretty painful. He was in a lot of pain coming off.“There’s a lot of swelling. Hopefully that will settle in the next couple of days, but it’s too early to say.”"

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Jullien has already had his injury issues this season and was out with a back problem for months. That coincided with one of Celtic’s worst runs in recent memory and it must be said that they have been better defensively since he has returned to the first-team fold.

His bravery to clear the ball off the line must be commended. But that ended up with him suffering a nasty collision with the post. He had to be ultimately stretchered off and was replaced by Nir Bitton. Let’s just that this is not another long-term problem for the Frenchman.

This will be a major worry for Lennon though. He might have had plans to play Kristoffer Ajer at right-back against the Rangers to shore up things at the back. But now there is very little hope of that happening. The Norwegian will now surely feature alongside either Bitton or Duffy at the heart of the defence, while Frimpong will retain his place in the team, although questions have been raised about the defensive side of his game which Gerrard’s men could look to exploit.