Martin O’Neill has admitted Celtic may not be in a position to rest Camilo Durán after leaving the Colombian out of the starting XI against St Johnstone.
Asked where Durán could fit in against Rangers on Sunday, and whether that may mean using him in a different position, O’Neill was open about the dilemma.
He said: (Celtic FC YouTube), “We’ll see, I’m not terribly sure. He was just, I’m not surprised, a little bit tired I felt in the St Mirren game.
“But he’s been so brilliant for us and I just thought that we could maybe rest him for the game. I’m not sure that we could, I’m not sure that we’re good enough to rest people in that sense.”
That is quite an admission given how quickly Durán has become one of Celtic’s most important attacking players.
He did eventually come off the bench in the 1-0 win over St Johnstone, but the decision to leave him out from the start gave O’Neill another look at his options ahead of the trip to Ibrox.
The Celtic boss also knows rotation will be unavoidable once the European schedule begins to bite.
O’Neill added: “We will have to, over the course of time, make changes, particularly if you’re playing European games. But to me, league is still the most important thing and you always get concerned about putting new people into the team in a very important fixture.
“But, you know, it happened and Sorensen played for a while, Camilo didn’t, he obviously got on. I’m just happy that we got through it.”
Sunday now presents a much bigger selection decision.
Whether Durán starts centrally or from the left remains to be seen, but after O’Neill’s latest comments, it would be a surprise if he did not have a major role to play at Ibrox.
Keep Reading
