Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Daily Record
Daily Record
Sport
Mark Pirie

Celtic injury latest on Starfelt, Rogic and Forrest as Ange Postecoglou admits mounting woes 'not a surprise'

Celtic will be without Tom Rogic and Carl Starfelt for the crucial Europa League group stage showdown with Ferencvaros.

Ange Postecoglou 's side travel to Hungary on Thursday knowing they must take all three points to keep their knockout stage hopes alive.

The Australian has revealed that both playmaker Rogic and key centre-back Starfelt will be missing for the visit to the Groupama Arena and the visit to Dundee on Sunday.

There was more positive news on James Forrest, though, after the winger made his Celtic return in the goalless draw with Livingston after a lengthy spell on the sidelines.

Ahead of the European clash, Postecoglou admitted the lack of squad rotation options is playing a part in the injury pile up.

Celtic's Carl Starfelt (L) goes down with an injury during a Cinch Premiership match between Celtic and Livingston (SNS Group)

He said: "We lost Carl Starfelt in the last game and similar sort of timeline to Tommy (Rogic) I guess.

"We are hoping he will be back after the international break, but he will definitely miss these two games.

"Everyone else got through the game OK. Obviously Jamesy (Forrest) got his first run for a while, and everyone else has trained well.

(SNS Group)

"It is always a blow when you lose players to injury. To be fair to Carl, he has played every game since he got here and it's not surprising that he has something like this happen.

"We would have loved to have rotated him earlier, but we tried to build some cohesion, consistency with our back four and we didn't want to chop and change too much because we had to at the start of the season.

"It would have been great to get him through this spell and give him the international break to recover.

"It's disappointing to lose him, but we have got options. (Stephen) Welshy has been raring to go, and has been unfortunate not to get another opportunity to play.

"Whenever he has played he has been very good for us, and Nir (Bitton) can slip back in there for us as well."

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.