A Season Held Together With Plasters & Prayers

At points this year, the treatment room at Celtic Park has seen a better team than the one on the park.

You’ve got long-term absentees who it’s confirmed won’t be back this season, if ever.

• Kasper Schmeichel
• Cameron Carter-Vickers
• Jota

Realistically we can now add Araujo to that list.

Iheanaco & McGregor are already back. For the moment.

Johnston, Osmand & Engels will soon be available.

Sounds like reinforcements are on the way. How much impact will that have with only seven games left?

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Thin Squad, Thick Consequences

Of those “nearing returns” Alistair Johnston was initially supposed to be out for three months. He was instead rushed back after two months for the Sturm Graz game and promptly tore his hamstring again. He will have been out for nearly eight months in total by the time we see him again, and he will be immediately expected to slot into the starting lineup.

Not just as a starter, but as a saviour.

He will, ironically but not amusingly, be needed to replace his own replacement in the injured Araujo. Another thigh injury to add to the list. Having gone back to Bournemouth and initially been ruled out for the rest of the season, the player has made some positive noises about potentially returning earlier.

As to whether that’s possible, or even advisable, he doesn’t have to look far for advice. Alistair Johnston could keep him right.

Despite his laudable determination to make it back for Celtic, surely he must also be considering his World Cup chances. Does he have to make it back to prove his fitness, or is he risking it all for a Mexico manager that may already have made his mind up one way or another?

Callum Osmand is a young man that was making his breakthrough. Despite being entirely sidelined by Brendan, he looked to be an exciting, brave and pacy player during his brief time to shine under Martin.

He injured himself (there’s a theme here) after being fished out of the depths of the B team to see us through crucial games. In one of which he subsequently pulled up, and it’s no surprise it was another hamstring injury.

Intensity, pressure and workload to which you’re simply unaccustomed, plays havoc with soft tissue and muscles.

He will have been out for the best part of 5 months by the time we see him again. Like many of you I’m sure, I harbour some slight hope that he could display the fearlessness of youth to ignite our front line.

I also acknowledge how deeply unfair that is on the player, but that’s indicative of the desperation we’ve endured this season, and it is very likely to be unduly optimistic.

I mention that Iheanaco and Calmac are back for now. As you know, that’s a necessary caveat.

Let’s take Iheanaco for a start. His injury record so far –

He’s made 15 appearances, 8 starts and scored 3 goals. Only 1 from open play.

Date	Injury Type	Duration	Games Missed	Source
14 Dec 2025 – 29 Jan 2026	Hamstring Injury (Recurrence)	~46 Days	10+
23 Oct 2025 – 26 Nov 2025	Hamstring Injury	35 Days	6

Key Injury Milestones at Celtic

• First Setback: Iheanacho first suffered a hamstring injury during a UEFA Europa League match against Sturm Graz in October 2025, which sidelined him for over a month.
• Premier Sports Cup Final: In his first start following his return, he was forced off after only 35 minutes in the final against St Mirren on 14 December 2025 due to a recurrence of the same hamstring issue.
• Recovery and Return: He remained out of the squad for much of early 2026, eventually returning to full training in mid-February and making his competitive return as a late substitute against Falkirk on 1 February 2026.
• Current Status: As of late March 2026, he has returned to the starting lineup, recently playing 57 minutes in a loss against Dundee United

You have to ask though, when the board sold Adam Idah, despite the manager saying it wouldn’t happen unless they had a replacement secured, then failing to secure that replacement, is there any way they could reasonably have known that a man who had his contract cancelled by Sevilla, just to get rid of him, and was universally slated by the Middlesbrough and Sevilla fans as perpetually unfit and never up to speed, might be perpetually unfit and never up to speed?

I don’t think the services of Mystic Meg were required to see how this would go.

When it comes to Callum McGregor, who turns 33 in June, every Celtic fan is aware of how much he has been overplayed in the last few years. Rather than being sympathetic to the inevitable physical decline that comes with age, he has been played relentlessly and very rarely substituted no matter the game state.

In 2018/19 the club proudly proclaimed he had played more minutes of competitive football in the season than any other player in world football.

Flogged to within an inch of his life and having it held up as an achievement!

The only other two players anywhere near his minutes that year were both central defenders. They obviously cover a lot less ground than a central midfielder like Callum.

Rather than resting him and managing the physical state of a midfielder in his thirties, he’s playing as much as ever, if not more.

Club Appearances by Season (2022–2026) 

Season	League	Scottish Cup	League Cup	Europe	Total Club
2025/26*	30	2	4	12	48
2024/25	35	5	4	10	54
2023/24	35	3	1	6	45
2022/23	31	5	3	3	42

As with nearly every other injury issue, it rests with the failure to strengthen the squad. Achilles and calf injuries as a result of being overplayed, have kept him out for weeks at a time in the last few seasons.

And Callum has had form issues as well, never mind his injury concerns, but there’s been no attempt to secure a successor to replace him or share his burden.

The fact that we have a £25 million-pound rated player returning to the team should be a cause for major celebration. Engels has been out for 6 weeks and is the returnee most likely to make a positive & timely impact.

That potential price tag has changed a lot of minds and caused a lot of folks to reconsider their Arne Engels assessment. He was being pilloried for large parts of the season as part of our misfiring midfield. It made a lot of fans realise that if there was a midfield problem, it probably wasn’t Engels who was at its source.

He is not absolved of blame, but it has become clear that even if he is underappreciated in a midfield that has definitely misfired when he was on the park, it’s certainly more functional when he’s selected.

Imagine that. A player that we spent decent money on who makes the side better. At some clubs, that’s a policy. Must be nice.

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Predictable Problems

There is a seeming revolving door of soft tissue injuries: hamstrings, calves, thighs. The kind of injuries that scream overload, mismanagement… or both.

Celtic’s squad depth isn’t just light, it’s absolutely negligent for a club with domestic and (allegedly) European ambitions.

When you build a really thin squad reliant on ageing stalwarts, apprentices and “projects” who couldn’t get a game elsewhere, you’re essentially conducting a live experiment in how long it takes to break a player.

This isn’t hindsight. This was predictable.

Oh, and bear in mind we’re just discussing injuries today, not even the mismanagement of the squad necessary to get us into the position where we have potentially 15 players leaving in the summer and ten non contributors on long term contracts.

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Recruitment: The Root of the Problem

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: this isn’t a medical issue.

It’s a recruitment issue.

A squad built with:

• Too many players past their physical peak
• Too many players lacking match sharpness
• Too little genuine depth
• Too much reliance on key individuals

…was always going to creak. The only surprise is that anyone is surprised.

Many injuries aren’t just random events. They’re often the byproduct of poor planning. This is what you risk by overplaying certain individuals, rushing others, and relying on bodies that aren’t conditioned for the workload.

Not bad luck.

Consequences.

There is still a path to win this league, but let’s be honest, this isn’t a title charge.

It’s a title limp.

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Final Thought

If Celtic lose this title, it won’t have been lost in March or after any other specific injury.

They will have lost it in the transfer windows.

When you cut corners on squad building, when you don’t replace quality with quality, you don’t just weaken your team. You increase the likelihood that the team you do have won’t even be available.

And that’s exactly what’s happened.

A squad stretched too thin, pushed too hard, and cobbled together with a focus on ill-considered parsimony rather than obviously needed quality, which has led to desperate decisions and continued decline.

The injury list isn’t an anomaly.

It’s the audit.