Despite completing his injury recovery off the bench in last weekend’s 3-3 draw against Rangers, Celtics manager Brendan Rodgers has issued a warning, saying that captain Callum McGregor is “not out of the woods.”
Rodgers acknowledged that close observation is still necessary about the Achilles problem that sidelined the midfield player for five weeks and prevented him from playing for Scotland in their Euro 2024 warm-up matches against the Netherlands and Northern Ireland.
McGregor was introduced as a 65th minute replacement for Reo Hatate at Ibrox on Sunday and came through the match unscathed.
“He has come through well,” Rodgers explained. “We are still clearly managing him. He did absolutely incredible to be available for the game. The timeline was beyond Rangers. But he worked so hard, he wanted to put himself out there.
“He had only trained a few days coming into the game, so this week has been another good week for him. We just have to manage it, he is not out the woods at all.
“But seeing him in training earlier, he looked really good. But it’s also recognising that he had been out quite a long time and, no matter who you are, if you’ve missed five-odd weeks of training, you are not obviously going to be at your best level of football fitness-wise.”
McGregor is fit to play against St Mirren on Saturday, however Liam Scales will miss the game due to a slight strain, while Daizen Maeda is out with a hamstring injury that could keep him out of the game for the entire season.
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