I don’t know how long- Rodgers reveals his big injury concern

Brendan Rodgers has admitted that Nicolas Kuhn is a serious injury concern going into the festive fixtures.

The winger has been the stand out performer so far this season with a flow of goals and assists across three competitions, without him at Dundee United today Celtic failed to score for the first time domestically this season.

Kuhn played for 105 minutes of the League Cup Final but was bothered by his knee during the week with a further twinge at training on Saturday raising the red flag.

Speaking after the match, the Daily Record reports Rodgers saying:

Cameron and Auston were ill. Ali should be back for Thursday and we just wanted to give him recovery time.

He did really well to play in the final so we just wanted to rest him. Nicolas, we will need to see. He’s been tentative with his knee and we didn’t want to risk that. I don’t know how long Nicolas will be out for.

Hopefully it’s not long-term. He felt a problem with his knee and then he felt a twinge on Saturday. We hope that it’s not too long but I will find out more on Monday about whether he will be back for Thursday. He’d been running and moving okay but he felt a twinge when he passed the ball and we will need to see.

With James Forrest out injured until the end of January Celtic’s winger options have been drastically reduced.

Daizen Maeda and Yanh Hyun-jun started today’s 0-0 draw with Luis Palma and Kyogo Furuhashi finishing the game in the wide positions.

With so much play directed down the wings being without two of his first three picks for those positions will be a concern for Rodgers.

Today’s clean sheet demonstrated that the Irishman has good options in defence but while others enjoy their Christmas the fitness of Kuhn will probably be the biggest issue facing Rodgers this week.