Scott Brown and James Forrest back for Hamilton game
The club captain hasn’t played since the 3-1 win over Hamilton on October 2 and underwent surgery on a metatarsal injury.
Brown’s return would be a big boost for Neil Lennon who will be without Korean duo Cha Du-Ri and Ki Sung-Yeung for up to a month due to international commitments at the Asian Cup.
Forrest hasn’t played since September 11 but the Scotland u-21 internationalist has been back in full training for a fortnight.
Discussing the clubs injury list in this week’s Celtic View Lennon said: “James Forrest is hopefully going to be ready to play against Hamilton which would be a big bonus for us because he started the season very well but we’ll see how he is nearer the time.
“Scott Brown and Biram Kayal are not far away either. Scott could be in contention for Hamilton and Emilio Izaguirre is another who may be back in time.
“That’s three players who have had lengthy lay-off’s who could be back for us.”
Lennon hasn’t seen his side in action since the 2-2 draw with Inverness Caley Thistle and in anxious to get going again.
The weather forecast for tomorrow has put Saturday’s game at Hamilton in doubt but the hoops boss is hopeful that the unscheduled break isn’t extended any further.
Lennon added: “Having drawn our last two couple of home games the lads are desperate to play again as quickly as possible but that’s not been the case. In terms of training though it’s gone well.
“More snow is being predicted but there’s nothing that we can do about that, we just have to prepare as best we can.
“We’ve had time to analyse things. I haven’t been too down about the overall performances, it’s just because we’ve let ourselves down in the last 15 minutes of games when we’ve been in decent positions.
“I don’t want to make too much of that though because there’s a lot of football to be played. I’d imagine the players will be even more up for the game after two weeks off so there will be a real hunger to play.
“There will be a bit of freshness about them too, we have to prepare them as best we can but they are all looking forward to playing again.”
Mike Tumilty in charge of Hamilton match.
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