CELTIC first-team coach Gavin Strachan says there are no regrets over the club’s trip to Dubai despite 13 players as well as manager Neil Lennon and assistant John Kennedy having to self-isolate upon their return.
A depleted home side drew with Hibernian at Celtic Park last night, and Strachan explained afterwards the reasoning behind taking the injured Christopher Jullien to the training camp, only for the Frenchman to test positive for Coronavirus upon their return to Scotland.
Despite the turmoil that has followed, Strachan remained defiant that the call to go to Dubai had been the correct one.
“It was to maintain [Jullien]’s treatment with the backroom staff, he went over there so we can get him back as fast as we can,” Strachan said.
READ MORE: SFA chief Ian Maxwell defends Celtic's Dubai trip
“There's regret that one person has caught the virus but there's not a regret in terms of the permission we got to go and the protocols that we followed, which we have done the whole season.
“It's regrettable that we got one positive, which we could have got at any time.
“It’s a trip that’s been done over the last few years and it has yielded very positive results, so the thinking behind it was to maintain that and try to galvanise and push in the second half of the season.
“For me as a coach, the work we did out there was absolutely fantastic. We had more time to work on certain elements of our game because of the good weather.
“The only regrettable thing is that someone has come back with a positive test.
“I can understand the frustration from everybody, because we end up playing with a weaker team, but that could have happened if we were training at home as well.
READ MORE: Chris Sutton lashes out at Neil Lennon and Peter Lawwell over Celtic's Dubai trip
“There’s a lot of teams up and down the country, and in England as well, who are suffering with this.
“We’re on several coaches here as well, and everything that we planned to do was passed beforehand, so we were just carrying on with our same protocols.
“Obviously the situation changed when we were away in terms of the new variant, so I think that escalated things.”
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