Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou has confirmed that a final decision is still to be made as to whether the club will postpone any of the up-and-coming fixtures due to players being selected for international duty.
As we approach some crucial games of the season, on our return to Scottish Premiership action, there is a chance that Postecoglou could be without the likes of Tom Rogic, Kyogo Furuhashi and Daizen Maeda, to name a few.
So, there have been some calls for fixtures against Hearts, Dundee United and the Glasgow Derby at the beginning of February against Rangers to be called off if some of the Hoops key stars are missing.
This would be allowed to occur due to the SPFL rules stating that if a side is missing up to three players due to international duty, they can call for a postponement.
As reported by Sun Sport, speaking on the speculation surrounding these suggestions, Postecoglou confirmed it would be business as usual for now until the club received more news before a final decision is made in the coming weeks.
He said: “That falls into the department of stuff that I don’t really think about. It’s not a problem yet.
“I could spend hours thinking about it and what we were going to do and strategise and have meetings on it — then, in the end, find out that only one gets selected. I’m not going to worry about that.
“We’ll plan as we always have, that when we lose players to international duty, we’ll crack on and play the games we need to play.
“At the moment, there’s no point even thinking about that. As it stands, none of the players have been selected, so until that happens, we’ll look at it then.”
At this point in time, it seems almost certain that both Kyogo and Tom Rogic will be selected for their nations. However, there remains the possibility that Maeda, Reo Hatata, Yosuke Ideguchi and Cameron Carter Vickers could all be missing.
Of course, there is no guarantee that any of the other four players are selected for the forthcoming World Cup qualifiers, so Ange is correct to continue his planning for the critical fixtures we face in the next few months.
However, it will be interesting to see the outcome and if there is any change when those international squads are announced.
