25 year old defender Cameron Carter-Vickers has certainly made an impact at Celtic since his arrival as a loan signing from English side Tottenham Hotspur back in the 2021/22 campaign. After his very successful and impressive spell with us we turned the deal permanent the next summer, paying a reported £6 million for his services and having already long passed the 50 appearance milestone, if the 2023/24 season goes well for him he will be pretty close to cracking the 100 appearances marker.
He definitely made himself more of a fan favourite given he continued to play through the pain barrier for most of last season, as the American held off on surgery until he had largely completed what was again a successful campaign for us, opting to go under the knife when it became unmanageable following our Scottish Cup semi final success.
Having missed most of pre season, and only getting 45 minutes under his belt in our warm up games, he did last the full 90 minutes in our opener against Ross County, and he opened up about his issues last year following that win and for those fans who like a flutter, given the season is now in full flow, expertly crafted free football tips and predictions for this weekend’s matches could well help improve your chances of success.
“That’s how I want to do it. The best way to get fitness is to play games, so it’s perfect for me. I feel good, even though I didn’t train with the team until about 10 days ago, I was running on my own for a while. So physically I feel good and I’m ready to play.”
Having got another 45 minutes under his belt in Sunday’s clash with Aberdeen at Pittodrie, as Celtic made it two wins from two, having expressed his preference for gaining match fitness in this way, he will undoubtedly be pleased with the progress he was making – even if from a tactical point of view, his substitution by manager Brendan Rodgers was the correct decision.
“It was quite a while that I played through pain. Long before Christmas I initially did it. The pain wasn’t bad consistently, there were lows and highs, but it was definitely something I needed to get sorted and now that it is I am in a good spot. My understanding of the injury was, the likelihood was it was never going to get worse in terms of the actual damage in the knee. So it wasn’t too much of a risk. It was just mainly pain management. Some weeks I maybe wouldn’t train at the start of the week, I would just come in towards the end of the week to be ready for the game. It was about managing the pain and trying to play 90 minutes at the weekend really.”
He went on to add.
“I wanted to go as far as I could with it. I wanted to be there to help the team if I could and I still felt I could contribute in a positive way. I knew I needed it done but my view was that I would be guided by the management and the physios as to when it should happen. They thought that when I did get it done would be the best time, when we had most things wrapped up from last season and also to be ready for the beginning of this season.”
It seems the management and medical staff got this one spot on.
