No one in Timdom will be shocked to hear the news that Jan Veneegoor of Hesselink is about to notch up a few more sessions on the treatment table, and the recurrence of the injury to Stephen McManus is no suprises given that he was clearly unfit in the match against Falkirk last week and looked out of sorts against Hearts on Sat.
What I cannot figure out however is why Big Mick was required to play in either game? With able deputies in Glenn Loovens and Darren O'Dea why the need for him to play 180 minutes of football in 3 days? Just so you can play Caldwell in midfield???
Strachan had this to say on Jan's injury "Jan has been playing with an injury but the way it was going at Tynecastle I had to keep him on because his height was so important," said Strachan.
"At least he has a lot of time to get treatment and hopefully recover before we have to play again."
Heading hastily back to the good news - Shaun Maloney had this to say: "It has been an incredibly frustrating time for me but hopefully I'll be able to add something to the title run-in for Celtic," he told The Times.
"Right now, I don't feel like I've been helping the team much at all."
The return of Shaun is a massive boost in my opinion. Do you remember all the beautiful free flowing football at the start of the season that was flowing through young Shaun? There is no doubt that Maloney gives us a different and more potent route of attack, which is something that we have missed most of the season.
Meanwhile Neil Lennon had this to say about McManus' injury and also the decision to play drop Crosas to the bench v Hearts.
Stephen being Stephen, he's too brave for his own good and possibly on reflection he'd admit he shouldn't have started," the former Leicester midfielder told Celtic TV.
"So we made that change with Crosas coming in.
"We'll have to assess him this week and he will get treatment this week and we'll see how he is on Thursday and Friday.
"He'll have to be honest with us and say whether or not [he can play]. We need him at least 90 percent fit for a difficult game with Aberdeen at home.
"I understand where he's coming from because as a player you want to play every game. That's just the character he is and that can be detrimental to yourself and the team."
Lennon explained: "I thought he played well when he came on [against Hearts] and I think he gave us some composure and passed the ball better.
"But there were times when he gave the ball away and you accept that, he's still a young lad.
"But I think he's looked at the St Mirren game and he's learned from that and it's not all glorious football every week and you need to roll your sleeves up and dig in at times.
"We've had to explain that to him that there's occasions when even though he's played well that he might need to left out for the conditions and the occasions."
Yours in Celtic
Clydebuilt