Neil Lennon believes that international football must be altered after four of his players were forced into self-isolation.
Assembling squads from all over Europe for three matches in seven days never seemed the wisest move with the Israel squad playing in three different countries over the recent fixture card. On the back of that, despite negative tests going back to June, Hatem Abd Elhamed and Nir Bitton will miss Saturday’s Glasgow derby.
Juventus will be without Cristiano Ronaldo after he returned a positive test in Portugal with clubs increasingly concerned about the risks to their players caused by international breaks.
Next month Scotland play matches in Serbia, Israel and Slovenia before Celtic face Europa League ties against AC Milan and Sparta Prague on successive Thursday.
OLD FIRM PREVIEW@CelticFC manager Neil Lennon says he was surprised Nir Bitton played for Israel against @ScotlandNT last week after recovering from injury
Bitton and teammate Hatem Elhamed both tested positive for Covid-19 on international duty pic.twitter.com/uE4FjR7zIc
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) October 15, 2020
Picking up on an interview with Lennon’s interview on Sky Sports, the Herald reports:
It can’t go on the way it’s going because we’ve lost four players. Not just us, other clubs as well – even countries. Look at the Czech Republic in the previous round, they had to completely change the squad. It dilutes the quality and the integrity of the competition.
It’s very difficult for me to say, ‘Look, you’re not going and playing for your country’. That’s something I would never want to do to a player but these are unprecedented times and we’re in a very, very difficult situation.
Even at home, the virus seems to be ramping up again. Ideally, we don’t want them to travel but we’re not going to point the finger at them and tell them they can’t go.”
Arsenal haven’t given up on having Kieran Tierney available to face Manchester City despite the defender being placed in self-isolation on the same grounds as Ryan Christie.