Martin O'Neill has made it pretty clear he cannot afford to rest star attacker Camilo Duran despite doing so on Wednesday night. The Bhoys squeezed past St Johnstone away from home while making five changes, with O'Neill managing a tough workload currently, with his side playing 10 games in just 37 days, leading up to next weekend's league derby with Rangers.
Duran was one of the players rested, having started almost every game since arriving from Qarabag, and the attacker had unsurprisingly expressed some soreness from the heavy workload.
After the game, O'Neill spoke of how Celtic missed Duran's pressing ability, with the Colombian having quickly developed a reputation for working harder than most, even chasing players back into defensive areas while playing at the top end of the pitch.
Asked about Duran before Sunday's Old Firm clash, O'Neill said: “We’ll see, I’m not terribly sure. He was just, I’m not surprised, a little bit tired I felt in the St Mirren game.
“But he’s been so brilliant for us and I just thought that we could maybe rest him for the game. I’m not sure that we could, I’m not sure that we’re good enough to rest people in that sense.”
Asked about the importance of rotation when Europa League games start stacking up, O'Neill added: "We will have to, over the course of time, make changes, particularly if you’re playing European games. But to me, league is still the most important thing and you always get concerned about putting new people into the team in a very important fixture.
“But, you know, it happened and Sorensen played for a while, Camilo didn’t, he obviously got on. I’m just happy that we got through it.”
Rotation comment is troubling
It's a concern for Celtic that O'Neill doesn't feel as though he can rest players. It may say a lot about the depth O'Neill has, and the quality of it.
It's something we said on the back of the transfer window, that saw a late flurry of signings. As we warned at the time, it's all well and good getting bodies in, but are those players good enough? Some of those late signings will work out, but others may well not match the standard Celtic need, whether that's in the league or the Europa League.
Depth is pointless if O'Neill does not feel as though he can rely on those players to keep up his side's standard of play, and that seems to be how he feels currently.
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