Reinaldo Rueda has been forced to explain the reasons for Luis Palma being dropped from the Honduran squad for Nations League matches against French Guiana and Jamaica.
A year ago Palma had just completed a transfer to Celtic, was playing and scoring in the Champions League and looked like becoming an influential player for his national side.
Since the turn of the year things haven’t gone to plan for the winger who is now out of favour with his club and country.
It is a worrying downward spiral for the 24-year-old with his international coach explaining the problems the player has faced since the turn of the year.
Rueda told Honduran website Deportestvc:
Luis Palma has had a difficult time since his injury in February. We couldn’t have him in March. I think he had a good preseason, he recovered, he played some minutes in preseason. Then, when the tournament started in the last month, he hasn’t had any competition.
So it is a high risk for him when he is not at his best and even more so when we are going to have difficult matches. Against Jamaica and Trinidad he had a lot of minutes, we gave him minutes so that he could once again appear in his club, but he had no competition in the last games, we hope he recovers and that we can count on him in the next match.
Since those September international matches Palma has played 10 minutes off the bench at home to Hearts followed by a start against Falkirk in the League Cup before being replaced after 60 minutes with Celtic trailing 2-1.
With Nicolas Kuhn having a growing influence on Celtic it is difficult to see a way back for Palma who has Daizen Maeda cemented into the left winger role in Brendan Rodgers’ side.
A January transfer looks the most likely solution but after a big money move to Celtic in August 2023 the player may need to take a backward step and pay cut if he wants to get his career back on track.
