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.