The Media Who Gleefully Hoped For A Celtic Injury Crisis Aren’t Laughing Anymore.

For weeks now – since before the international break – there has been a palpable lust amongst the some of the hacks for a Celtic injury crisis. They salivate over every knock, and whip themselves into a frenzy every time a player in our squad goes down.

I can only imagine how joyous they were when Abada became the latest player to limp off the pitch during the game in midweek. You could almost hear the wheels turning in the heads of the hacks as they dreamed up a scenario where there was no Jota, no Abada, no McGregor and possibly a handful of others out for the next few weeks.

As it just so happens, our injury issues look as if they are easing. Callum is the only guy about who looks like he’ll be out a while yet, but even that doesn’t’ sound as bad as the news might have. They didn’t get the injury crisis they wanted.

They got the one from their nightmares instead.

When Goldson went down on Wednesday night and immediately the physio waved for the substitution you knew it was bad. It looked bad in the replays, and when you saw him late in the game on the crutches you knew that it was potentially very bad indeed.

But typically of the Ibrox club, they actually made a bad issue worse.

During the game, Davies felt something not quite right and he should have been taken off. But there was no Plan B at that point, and so they left him on … and lo and behold he too is injured.

How long for?

Some of the Ibrox fan forums buzz with the rumour that it’ll be “weeks”. How many weeks? It’s happened to enough of our players that you know better than to put a timetable on it. If he really is out for a while they have big, big problems.

Because unlike us, they don’t have the squad strength to cope with this. Their team building during the summer was, frankly, barmy; they signed a bunch of forward players and only one of them has looked up to much. They neglected central midfield and left themselves over dependent on Souttar and Davies, two players with long histories of injuries.

And surprise! Davies is now laid up and Souttar hasn’t kicked a ball in months and might not for months to come. There is talk that they will spend in January; they’d almost certainly have to if some of these injury issues were going to persist.

But a long can go wrong between now and then, and that Ibrox squad is on the bones of its arse. This is what a really injury crisis looks like and it’s happening to them instead of us.

There is a sort of poetic justice in that, and some in the press are obviously sick.