Brendan Rodgers masterminded a 1-0 victory for Celtic at Ibrox on Sunday afternoon. Kyogo Furuhashi was the difference maker for the Bhoys in a crucial derby win.

In the match, the Irish gaffer was forced into a fair few changes, however. Firstly, Canadian full-back Alistair Johnston had to be withdrawn on 65 minutes. Rodgers said on Sky Sports that the 24-year-old is ‘just coming back’ and that he was ‘just tired a little bit’ and is still ‘building his fitness’.

It is beneficial for Johnston and the Hoops that the international break is upcoming. It gives time to certain players to recover ahead of a clash at home to Dundee in a few weeks.

Johnston and Kyogo
Soccer Football – Scottish Premiership – Rangers v Celtic – Ibrox, Glasgow, Scotland, Britain – September 3, 2023 Celtic’s Kyogo Furuhashi shakes hands with Alistair Johnston to celebrate after the match REUTERS/Russell Cheyne

In today’s game, however, Johnston wasn’t the only full-back to have been withdrawn. Greg Taylor was subbed off in the latter stages. On the Scottish defender, Rodgers said: “Greg just felt a bit of tightness so we just brought him off and put on Alexandro.”

To have no extra injury worries following today’s match is positive for the Hoops. In the coming two weeks, there are no games which means players such as Carter-Vickers, Nawrocki, Hatate, and Welsh have lots of time to recover, come back, and strengthen the team.

1 COMMENT

  1. Yes three centre halfs injured and for a while they played well at ibrox and stood up to it with no away fans but we were missing the ball out of defence slater made a couple of bad passes hone team goal chopped off for offside in furst minute that would have unsettled most defences but it seem to settle slater lagerbuigh looked more nervious couple of interception but tried to play from back fiuled when delayed pass ref should have whistled for foul straight away but had to have var to tell him to have another look and he had no opition to disallow no honest mistakes but should have stopped it before home team scored stop the debate we wom but im looking for Celtic to play a lot better and we will

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