CELTIC are likely to be without Tom Rogic for the Old Firm showdown against Rangers on Saturday after manager Brendan Rodgers confirmed he expects the midfielder to fly out to Dubai on international duty.
The Celtic manager had hoped that his midfielder would be allowed to play in the match before joining up with Australia for the AFC Asia Cup, calling on the Football Federation of Australia to ‘see sense’, but Rodgers has all but admitted defeat after the Socceroos insisted that the 26-year-old meet up with his international teammates.
The player himself made a personal plea to his national team manager Graham Arnold to play in the fixture at Ibrox, with Australia’s first match of the tournament against Jordan not until January 6th, but those pleas appear to have fallen on deaf ears.
"Tom will play in the Aberdeen game and then he'll fly out after that and miss the Rangers game as far as I'm aware, which is a shame for him, a shame for us,” said Rodgers.
“We feel a sensible compromise could have been taken for all the players in their squad.
“You can't say it's the same for everyone because everyone is different. Everyone has different needs, play at different clubs, different levels and this is a great game for him to be involved in.
“If he's not, it's a shame but we'll just have to prepare without him.
"He has [made a personal plea], but there's been enough said and written about it. Our feeling is he won't be here, he's got to go back. We move on.”
Rodgers had some better news on the injury front, with many of his first-team regulars who sat out yesterday’s 3-0 win over Dundee likely to be fit and available for both the Aberdeen game at Pittodrie on Boxing Day and the game against their Glasgow rivals.
“We wanted to leave [Kieran Tierney] this week to recover,” he said. “He should hopefully be fine for next week's two games.
"[We’ve] Just shut [Odsonne Edouard] down for a few days and let him rest and recover and him, [Mikael] Lustig and [Dedryck] Boyata will be back available for the games.”
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