Fears that Cameron Carter-Vickers could miss the start of the season have been reduced with the Daily Record reporting that the defender is making a full recovery from surgery.
What is being reported as a tidy up operation went to plan despite reports that Carter-Vickers hasn’t been involved so far in pre-season training with his team-mates.
Finding a left-sided partner for the former Spurs man was viewed as something of a transfer priority, if Carter-Vickers was to be out injured the issue would multiply with trips to Pittodrie and Ibrox as well as a Champions League Play Off to be faced during August.
Keith Jackson may not be the most popular of reporters for Celtic supporters but the Daily Record veteran earned the trust of Peter Lawwell, getting his last ever newspaper interview as Celtic CEO.
At 5.45pm tonight the Daily Record reported:
We can confirm that Celtic’s 27-year-old defensive linchpin did indeed go under the knife for what is being described as a ‘tidy up’ operation.
Carter-Vickers was instructed by the club’s medics to withdraw from the US international squad for a packed summer schedule of friendlies and Concacaf Gold Cup clashes, which concludes next week with a tie against Mexico.
That decision was made at a time when Rangers were allowing John Souttar to delay hernia surgery to join up with Scotland for end of bounce matches against Iceland and Liechtenstein.
Souttar is now racing against the clock to be fit in time for a Champions League qualifier against Panathinaikos on July 22.
But, although Carter-Vickers is not yet ready to rejoin his team mates in full training and will not feature in the club’s first pre-season friendly against Queens Park on Friday night or travel to Ireland to face Cork next week, Rodgers is confident of having his star defender back with the squad in days rather than weeks,
A source said: “Cameron had the issue at the end of last season so he was taken out of the internationals to have the problem cleared up. He is just about ready to begin training again.”
Since January 2023 there has been a succession of injury problems for Carter-Vickers, his playing time was managed until a 1-0 Scottish Cup semi-final win over Micky Beale’s. After that victory the US internationalist underwent knee surgery that ruled him out for the remainder of the season.
After the friendly against Cork City Celtic travel to Portugal to step up training and play two matches before returning to face Newcastle United on July 19 before completing their build up the following weekend with two matches in Como.
If Carter-Vickers is fit and ready to play against Newcastle the concerns over his fitness can be dismissed with the Champions League qualifiers coming on August 19/20 and 26/27.
Need a big commanding centre half. Have done for years but fck all happens. CVV is now injury prone.
i agree with stevie a big centre half is a must as we are weak when it comes to crosses in our box. cant understand why nawvrockie doesnt get more game time. we paid £4 million for him so he deserves to be given a run of games hasnt disapointed when given the odd game
Totally agree with both Stevie and David Deans a Rick solid centre half is a must due to CCV’s injury problems. Nawrocki deserves a chance. Rocky Bishiri could have been snapped up for next to nothing and would have at the very least been a capable stop gap replacement! Celts could have snapped up Scott MckKenna a few years back too, a solid dependable centre back.