Celtic’s Defensive Crisis Is Real, And Unfortunately We Just Need To Weather It.

Amidst other stuff going on Friday, we had Stephen Welsh become the latest player to put pen to paper on a new Celtic deal, and I’m very pleased at that development. We need this boy in the squad and that he’s had interest from Italy and elsewhere offers compelling evidence that he can certainly offer us something, even if only as a backup right now.

It was crushing to read yesterday morning that he’s going to be out for four weeks; it’s a shocker at a time when we’re already nursing injuries to Carter Vickers and Kobayashi.

This should be the best that the backline has looked in a long time … instead its a mess.

We’re going into this game today with two centre backs who’ve never played together before, and whilst I urged that course of action even if Cameron had been fit, it is not ideal … far from it.

One more injury, or if the Carter Vickers one is more serious than we’re aware, and this will be a very difficult situation for us and we might potentially have a big problem.

There is nothing clubs can do about a run of luck like this, and nothing else to do but work through it as best we can. Liam Scales will be on standby to step up if needed … but it’s not great.

People will urge, some might even demand, that we go out and sign someone.

But what would be the point?

With Welsh now locked in on a long term deal we’ve got four first team players for two positions and this is only if you’re writing the big Japanese player off, which nobody should be. That makes five.

That three are injured at one time is just one of those things.

You certainly cannot just keep adding to our defensive options.

There are spending and wage limits. There are squad size considerations. No manager can keep all those players happy. When you get beyond 30 first teamers you’ve already got too many.

One player for every position and one backup; that’s the standard way squads are built. 22 players. A European squad has 25. That’s also the registration limit in many of Europe’s top leagues; 25 players plus as many Under 21s as you want to use.

So all we can really do is look to what we have for options.

Scales will be one of those, of course, and I was pleased to hear that Alastair Johnston is back in training; that means our best right back will very soon be available, and we’re a much better team with him in it.

But what people might have forgotten is that Johnson can also play at central defence, a fact he revealed when he signed and which I thought at the time might at some point have allowed Ange to experiment with a back three.

I would be loathe to see him in that role when he could be in his natural slot … but it’s good to know he’s available if that’s required,

Ibrox seems to weigh heavily on a lot of minds these days, although I don’t know why. As long as we go there with our three point lead (or better) the worst we do coming out of that game will be level pegging and that’s the worst case scenario.

I genuinely don’t know what people are so concerned about.

Before long we’ll have a squad up to speed and fully fit.

We’ll have a couple of new signings on top of that and a squad which should be ready to dominate all before us in Scotland again. Europe’s different, but Europe was never going to be easy anyway, and spending all the money we have in the bank would not have made it less tough.

In terms of the central defence we have to work with what we have for the next few weeks, until we have everyone fit again.

It’s just one of those things.