Brendan Rodgers reckons Celtic’s injury jinx is beginning to lift after Emilio Izaguirre survived a potential leg-breaker while key men are on the comeback trail.
The Hoops boss was delighted his side maintained their six point advantage at the top of the Premiership with last night’s 2-0 win against Hibs.
But he was more relieved to see his men come through unscathed after Izaguirre was stretchered off after an eye-watering challenge from Easter Road sub Darnell Johnston.
Rodgers revealed the damage to the Honduran was not as bad as first feared while James Forrest and Odsonne Edouard are not facing lengthy spells on the sidelines along with the rest of the Parkhead casualties.
The Celtic gaffer said: “ It was a clumsy challenge on Emilio. At best it was clumsy, because he was over on the ball.
“I think it scared Emilio a little bit, because he’s had issues with broken ankles before.
“But the medical team are telling me they think he’s got away with it.
“He’s a little bit sore but he will be okay in a few days.
“Listen, Craig Thomson is a very good referee. He maybe didn’t see it at the time, he was maybe blinded by it.
“But, yeah, it wasn’t a good challenge at all.”
Rodgers reckons there is light at the end of the tunnel for some of the Parkhead walking wounded.
He said: “Olivier Ntcham will hopefully be back towards the weekend, having been training all week.
“It was brilliant to have Dedryck on there tonight. We asked him to give us 60-70 minutes, he did that and was unfortunate not to score.
“So that’s a plus after having him out for so long.
“Hopefully Odsonne Edouard will be okay by the weekend.
“James Forrest, the scan was clear. So, again, we just need to monitor the tightness.
“Whether he will be available for the weekend or not, I would think he’ll definitely be available for Valencia. We’ll assess it over the coming days.”
Rodgers was thrilled with his side’s slick display against Hibs are they made it six wins on the spin since the winter break.
He said: “I have always tried to get my team to play without pressure and you can see that now because they’re playing well. People talk about pressure but we haven’t concede a goal, we played very well and while there are items we can look at, we are just enjoying our football.
“There is a perception created around a challenge for the title and that it’s tight but all you can do is focus on our own performance and not get too emotional about it, and play good football.”
Stand-in Hibs boss Eddie May admitted there were some feisty tackles at Parkhead and he was relieved no one was badly hurt.
He said: “There were a couple of poor challenges in the game. Hopefully the Celtic left-back is okay. Certainly, Mark Milligan is okay after the challenge from Scott Brown. Olly Shaw had to come off because he took a fair clatter from the big boy at the back.
“It’s all part of the game in terms of being competitive. But they were three hefty challenges.
“I wasn’t worried that Darnell would get a red card because Scott’s wasn’t a red. It was just a mis-timed tackle but hopefully his tackling will be a wee bit better in the future, to be perfectly honest.”
May – who could be in the dugout again this weekend as the Easter Road manager search continues – admitted his side didn’t help their own cause against the champions.
He said: “We lost two sloppy goals and we could do a lot better defending wise. You can’t give a team like Celtic those opportunities. They were clinical when they were in those areas.”
