Celtc will try to bounce back from their shock defeat at St Mirren without Cameron Carter-Vickers and Carl Starfelt after the star stoppers were ruled out of Saturday’s clash with Motherwell.
Injury concerns will also mean there is no place for Giorgos Giakoumakis up front but gaffer Ange Postecoglou’s biggest headache is at the back where USA international Carter-Vickers and Sweden’s Starfelt were badly missed in Paisley a fortnight ago. Stephen Welsh and Moritz Jenz deputised in defence that day and are likely to keep their places with Postecoglou insisting his team won’t be derailed by their first league defeat in a year.
The Celtic boss said: “Giakoumakis has pulled up a bit sore. He will miss the Motherwell game, but I’m confident after that he shouldn’t be too far away. All of the other ones like Carl and Cameron were injured prior to the international break, and they will still be missing for Motherwell. Carl is still probably a couple of weeks away.
“Cameron though is a day-to-day proposition, it’s certainly not something that will keep him out long or even medium term. At the moment, he is doing individual training, so we’ll see how he is after the weekend and then make our decision about RB Leipzig in midweek.”
Postecoglou has had the international break to mull over that painful defeat to St Mirren that ended an almost year-long undefeated streak in the Premiership for the Aussie’s side. While it would be more than understandable for the 57-year-old to make changes in a demand for a far better performance, the cool headed boss insisted there will be no knee-jerk reaction to it.
He added: “You’re obviously disappointed when you lose any game of football. But you have to apply perspective to these things. It’s not like before when we were winning we thought we were unbeatable.
“We knew –and I’ve said all along – that we are a team that still developing and progressing. We didn’t perform on the day, St Mirren did perform on the day, so we’ve analysed the game the same way we analyse every game and given the feedback to the players and now we move on to the next challenge. Aside from being disappointed because you never want to lose a game of football, it’s all about making sure the way we go about our business doesn’t change because of one outcome.”
Meanwhile, the SPFL have confirmed that Celtic’s home match with Livingston, postponed due to the death of Queen Elizabeth, will be played at Parkhead on Wednesday, December 21.
