The Celtic boss should have that rarest of things at the weekend. A fully fit squad to pick from.

We don’t know what’s been going on behind the scenes at Lennoxtown this week, so we don’t know if there is some big shock about to be dropped on us in terms of who is and who isn’t in training right now. But it looks as if Rodgers is going to be blessed with something that he hasn’t had in a while—and something he wasn’t blessed with for virtually the whole of last season: he will have his full available squad to choose from.

That’s going to feel novel for Rodgers because I can’t remember a Celtic manager who endured the kind of injury crisis that he did for large parts of last season. Now, we know that it is not uncommon for Celtic to have four or five players out at any one time, but it is not at all common for us to have four or five really, really good players out for long spells over the course of a campaign.

One of the problems we’ve had in recent years is that there’s been no real continuity in terms of the training and getting players up to speed. We have changed manager twice in the last three years, and whenever we do that, the new guy has to come in and hit the ground running with all sorts of changes to the training regimes. There are inherent difficulties with doing that, the most obvious one being that the players aren’t used to it, and players get hurt.

There will be concern because of things like Kyogo being out for a couple of games and Kuhn picking up an injury in training last week and not starting the weekend’s game against St. Mirren. That will make people nervous, and we’ll have people holding their breath all the way up until the announcement of the team. But it looks as if Rodgers will have a full complement to choose from. And as I said earlier in the week, that gives him options and gives us tactical flexibility. And that kind of tactical flexibility will be useful.

All this, of course, is to say nothing about the kind of signings we may still make in the next day and a half, which will add to our options. But for reasons that I’ve already pointed out, it probably won’t result in any major changes to the starting line-up.

Until Rodgers sits in front of the media tomorrow, we will all, to a certain extent, be holding our breath and hoping that nothing goes wrong. And even as we’re doing so, we will be keeping half an eye on what’s going on across town. Because, look, it looks increasingly unlikely that they’re going to move out some of the dross in their squad.

And if they don’t, they’re not going to be able to bring anybody else in.

Conversely, anybody else that they do bring in is going to struggle mightily to be up to speed for the game itself. And so, their squad is going to be just as interesting as ours. Their injury situation is going to be even more interesting than ours because they do have injuries and they do have players who are struggling to make the match.

And that could really tip the balance away from a mere victory to something more substantial, like that statement win which we talked about yesterday.

Morale over there can’t be particularly good.

Even some of the players who are staying know they’re not wanted. If they go into the game with a number of key players out, or having had a number of key players depart, they could find themselves in real trouble if, as I said yesterday, we score an early goal.

If I’m Rodgers, I’d have taken today easy in training. I’d take tomorrow easy in training and focus on theory rather than work out on the training pitch, because you don’t want an injury at this stage. You don’t want to lose a critical player by pushing them too hard with just days to go until the game, especially as it’s unlikely that anybody will be signed in time to be properly integrated into the squad at this stage. So, we have to be careful with that.

All that aside, it should be as strong a Celtic team as we are able to put out on the pitch. It won’t be the one that many of us want—it won’t even include Matt O’Riley and a bunch of new signings—but overall, it will be good enough for us to feel confident and comfortable going into the game.

The only questions right now appear to be about Kyogo and Kuhn; both came on at the weekend and looked okay. Brendan will tell us tomorrow, but ultimately the real decisions won’t be made and the real picture won’t be clear until the team sheet comes out early Sunday.

And you know something? I already can’t wait for it.