Ange Postecoglou has confirmed that Carl Starfelt will miss the matches against Ferencvaros and Dundee with Stephen Welsh the likely replacement.
Early in the second half against Livingston the Swede had to be replaced after pulling up kicking the ball back to Joe Hart.
Straight away he had to be replaced by Kyogo Furuhashi with Nir Bitton dropping into defence. When he discussed replacement options Welsh was the first player that came to mind.
?”It’s not surprising he’s had something like this happen…”
Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou says Carl Starfelt will be out until after the international break.
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— Clyde 1 Superscoreboard (@ClydeSSB) November 3, 2021
We lost Carl Starfelt, kind of similar recovery timeline to Tommy (Rogic). We’re hoping that he’ll be back after the international break but he’ll definitely miss these two games.
Carl has played every game since he got here, it’s not surprising he’s had something like this happen. We’d have loved to have rotated him earlier but we are trying to build some cohesion, consistency with our back four. We didn’t want to chop and change too much, we were trying to get through this spell upto the international break and give him a chance to recover.
It is disappointing to lose him but yeah we’ve got options. I mean Welshy has been raring to go, he’s been unfortunate I guess not to get an opportunity to play again because when he has played he has been very good for us. Niro can slip back in there as well.
Replacing Rogic and Starfelt while maintaining the standard of play that defeated Ferencvaros two weeks ago will be the big task for Postecoglou as he prepares for kick-off tomorrow night,
A win in Budapest would ensure third place for Celtic in the group but the draw between Real Betis and Bayer Leverkusen makes remaining in the Europa League a big task.
Four points from the last two matches are likely to be required to progress but with just two matches before the international break Postecoglou won’t be thinking that far in advance.
After the international break Celtic’s first match is against St Johnstone on November 20 in the semi-final of the League Cup.