Livingston’s plastic pitch has claimed it’s latest victim- Kieran Tierney.
Yesterday morning the defender pulled out of the Scotland squad to face Albania as a result of a 90 minute pounding on the latest plastic surface to appear in the top flight.
In England no club in the EPL or EFL are allowed to use a plastic pitch- in Scotland 25% of the pitches used in the top flight are designed for round the clock use for amateur players.
Brendan Rodgers claimed that he had never seen a decent game played on plastic with the all-weather surface a contributory factor in the weakened Scotland side playing Albania tonight.
Explaining Tierney’s injury McLeish told The Sun: “Kieran had a tightness in his leg, his hamstring.
“I don’t want to criticise astroturf pitches per se, but the Celtic guys came with a bit of tightness.
“Kieran was nursing it over the week. We all thought it was due to the fact Celtic played on astroturf last week. Kieran’s seemed to linger and that’s why we had to make the decision when he flagged it up this morning
“There was no doubt about it. You can’t mess with these things.
“Would he have been OK had he played on grass last weekend? I don’t know, but the fact is the guys were tight and there is a difference playing on astroturf, no doubt about it.
“We thought it would wear off. They get almost 48 hours to get back to normal on the training field.”
Next Saturday Celtic are in action on another plastic pitch when they visit Hamilton Accies.
Neither Jozo Simunovic or Filip Benkovic, who were brought up in Croatian football have started a match on plastic this season.