Johansen’s injury riddle

Stefan Johansen is determined to play for Norway against Croatia on Sunday despite a niggling hamstring injury.

The Celtic midfielder created the only goal of the game for Vegard Forren to give Norway a vital 1-0 win away to Bulgaria last night.

Johansen missed Celtic’s 3-1 win over St Johnstone due to injury and was substituted with three minutes remaining against Bulgaria with what appeared to be a hamstring knock.

With two points separating Croatia, Italy and Norway at the top of Group H a home win in Oslo would put the Norwegians in with a fighting chance of qualifying with two games left to play- with the final match away to Italy in Rome.

Asked about his fitness for Sunday Johansen told Dagbladet: “Yes, I’ll be going for it.”

After the win Norway boss Per Mathias Hogmo said: “We’ve won our third away game in the group without conceding a goal. We do not give away many chances either.

“We did a good defensive job and kept to our plan, at the same time we created enough chances to win.”

Three minutes after Forren’s goal Alexandar Tonev was introduced as a substitute for Bulgaria who are now out of contention to qualify.

The main story of last night was in Cyprus where Wales won 1-0 thanks to a goal from Gareth Bale to move within touching distance of qualifying.

On Sunday a home win against Israel will take the Welsh through with two matches still to play. Last night Israel won 4-0 at home to Andorra with Nir Bitton scoring the second goal. Israel are sitting in third place in the group but finish their campaign away to Belgium on October 13.