Ahead of the Betfred Cup tie against St Johnstone Brendan Rodgers admitted that he had made a mistake making too many changes to his teams for the defeats away to Hearts and Kilmarnock.
That spells bad news for those players who failed to make it into the team for those matches- their prospects will be even more restricted in future. Since he arrived as manager in May 2016 the size of the Celtic squad has been an issue for Rodgers to deal with.
With players sitting on contracts much more valuable than they would pick up elsewhere no-one has been rushing to quit the club which has restricted the turnover as the Irishman puts together the sort of squad that he would like to deal with.
There is still three full months to go before players can move on with Celtic reluctant to pay players off although Derk Boerrigter managed to get an early pay out before he formally retired from the game.
So far 26 players have featured in first team action this season which is maybe five or six more than ideal. Even allowing for the extensive fixture list that occupies every midweek through until the new year, with the exception of international commitments, the message seems to be that a much closer squad will be involved in an on-going basis.
MARVIN COMPPER
Regardless of how many problems Celtic have in defence it seems that Compper is never put forward as a solution.
After a couple of pre-season appearances he has again disappeared out of sight, failing to make an appearance in the Reserve side.
He was recently quoted as saying that he hoped to end his career at Celtic, sadly that happened with Derk Boerrigter with easy parallels being drawn between the two players.
SCOTT ALLAN
In the second half of last season he was as influential as John McGinn and Dylan McGeouch as Hibs pushed all the way for second place.
After sitting on the bench for a couple of the early Champions League qualifiers the midfielder has dropped out of the picture, like Compper he hasn’t even made an appearance for the Reserve side.
With his contract up at the end of the season he has probably made his last Celtic appearance, at 27 years of age he’ll have a few decent offers to pick up on a career which has been promising for close on a decade.
DORUS DE VRIES
A lot of supporters thought that he left during the summer but the Dutchman remains part of the goalkeeping pool.
Celtic did offer to free the former Swansea keeper but with no better offers coming in he has decided to see out the final year of his Celtic deal.
Scott Bain is providing back up to Craig Gordon with Conor Hazard the third choice keeper, effectively closing the door on his playing days at Celtic.