Ange Postecoglou has name-dropped David Turnbull into his Ibrox action plan.
The midfielder ended a three month injury absence when he came off the bench during Celtic’s 4-0 win over Ross County.
Speculation over the fitness of Kyogo Furuhashi has dominated the build up to Sunday’s derby clash as fans scanned the globe for snippets of news about a variety of internationalists.
Turnbull has enjoyed two full weeks of training at Lennoxtown with his nine goals in 36 appearances before Christmas not overlooked by his boss.
Speaking to The Herald Turnbull said:
Having Dave Turnbull is fantastic because he was such an important part of the first part of the year. From my perspective it all means that whatever challenges we face on Sunday we have some options to come off the bench.
I think it’s helped in our recent form because we have finished strongly in all our games because of the fact I am putting on some real quality players who are becoming embedded in the principles of our play.
That will help us because we haven’t been relying on just one or two. It’s fair to say in the front part of the year we had to rely on one or two like Kyogo and Dave Turnbull in an attacking sense particularly.
Right now we have multiple threats, multiple creative avenues and defensively we have some really good options if I need to change.
Since Turnbull started the League Cup Final in December Celtic have signed a brand new midfield in Matt O’Riley, Yosuke Ideguchi and Reo Hatate.
With Callum McGregor an automatic pick the competition for the two remaining midfield places is red hot with a variety of options open to the manager.
Turnbull will have to be patient to get another starting slot but Postecoglou is well aware of just how effective the former Motherwell man can be.
When Celtic opened their Europa League campaign away to Real Betis their substitute bench consisted of Scott Bain, Vasilis Barkas, Osaze Urhoghide, Liam Shaw, Ewan Henderson, Stephen Welsh, Dane Murray, Liam Scales and James McCarthy.
McCarthy and Welsh are the only outfield players from that fixture in contention for the bench tomorrow with Turnbull and Furuhashi likely to be joined by Nir Bitton, Liel Abada, Tom Rogic.
