Five Celtic first-team players turned out for the B side on Thursday evening against Dundee in a testimonial for Cammy Kerr. All of Scott Bain, Alexandro Bernabei, Yuki Kobayashi, Stephen Welsh, and Gustaf Lagerbielke started in the 1-0 loss.
It is fair to say all of these bhoys are on the fringes of Brendan Rodgers’ team. Valuable minutes would have been gained by each of them in the testimonial, but the mystery over Lagerbielke is particularly intriguing.
Signed from Elfsborg for over three million pounds in the summer, Lagerbielke started a number of games for Celtic at the start of the campaign. Most notably, the 23-year-old began at Ibrox and played the full 90 in the valuable 1-0 victory.
His early-season form led to international call-ups for Sweden. Indeed in October, the centre-half made his second appearance for his country and scored in a 3-1 win over Moldova.
No injuries have been sustained by Lagerbielke yet he has not played a minute for the Hoops since the 30th of September away at Motherwell. He has fallen drastically out of favour at Parkhead and is now turning out for the B team.
It remains to be seen whether he has a long-term future at Celtic or not, but the form of Liam Scales has been tremendous and likely not done him any favours.
Nevertheless, the summer signing’s lack of involvement in domestic matchday squads is a concern. Rodgers has expressed his desire to chop down his team, and it doesn’t seem, at least from the outside, that he favours Lagerbielke.
