The McGregor injury is bad then. Bad being a relative term, with the full extent of the badness not yet clear to us. But bad. It means what it says on the tin. Not short-term.
The manager hopes that it is not long-term. But it might be.
Even a medium term injury gives us problems, and those problems are going to be experienced in many different ways. Losing the captain of your team is a brutal blow, no matter who he is. There is a reason McGregor is so respected inside Celtic even if there are a lot of our fans who think he’s too soft to hold down the job.
There’s talk about Hart; as a rule I don’t think keepers make good captains because they are often too far from the action. Still, if a squad is full of strong enough characters it tends not to matter.
This Celtic side has big personalities in it.
It is high time those guys came to the fore. We’re going to need them.
Oliver Abildgaard is going to be an obvious beneficiary.
He will now step into the side. But don’t rule out a role for James McCarthy. Don’t rule out Aaron Mooy playing a bigger part. These guys haven’t really had much chance to show us what they can do.
In every crisis though there is an opportunity, and somebody is going to make his name over the next few weeks. Someone is going to make himself a key part of this team and perhaps even give the manager a decision to make when Callum is back fit.
Nobody is playing down the significance of the blow we’ve suffered. Nobody should. But it need not be a fatal one. The guys we’ve signed and the guys we’ve got in this team should be more than capable of filling the hole in the team.
It’s the leadership thing that might be an issue.
Once again, though, that affords someone in the team the chance to step up and be a hero. And someone will.
It has to be CCV.
How ironic: with the expected return of the highly influential defender CCV, we might be losing – arguably – our best player CalMac for an unknown period of time.
Whatever the prognosis, there is absolutely no point in trying to rush him back too soon – and don’t think he’ll be allowed to either.
We do have a strong squad, with a good spirit in the team.
This is where Ange shows us just how good a manager he is – again.
Trying to be positive.
If big Joe gets the armband it might concentrate his mind a bit more. I like him a lot, but sometimes I think he’s planning what to have for dinner tonight.
Joe Hart should be dropped, full stop.
calmac was the 1 player i had as irreplaceable…..and now we have to….which isn’t really a bad thing…gives the other players a chance…i hope the fans are patient with his replacement….whoever it is..he has big shoes to fill.
think ccv is favourite for the armband…
HH
Maybe we stop playing with a defensive midfielder and play five at the back?
Mooy for me is the man, Abilgard I ain’t sure is good enough.
Maybe pessimistic but ah think it’s a massive blow for us. Comin weeks-months will tell one way or another, how it’ll affect the team.