Celtic suffer triple injury blow ahead of Monchengladbach clash

The difficult task of pulling off an upset over Borussia Monchengladbach has been made even harder for Celtic after it was revealed three first-team players will miss the match through illness and injury.

Leigh Griffiths misses out through illness. Picture: David Lamb

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The Scottish champions and current league leaders flew out to Germany today ahead of their fourth match in the Champions League group. They did so without last season’s top goalscorer, Leigh Griffiths, who is suffering with an illness, and centre-backs Kolo Toure and Jozo Simunovic.

Toure was initially expected to recover in time having trained for Celtic this week, but the game will come too soon for the veteran defender who hasn’t played since the last fixture between the clubs.

Simunovic started alongside Erik Sviatchenko in Saturday’s 1-0 win in Aberdeen and it was assumed the pair would get the chance to continue their partnership in Monchengladbach. However, Simunovic, who missed the pre-season and early part of this campaign through injury, is not yet fit enough to play two high-intensity games in such a short space of time.

It is a massive blow for Celtic, who were already without star left-back Kieran Tierney. Brendan Rodgers’ side require all three points if they’re to have much hope of finishing third behind Barcelona and Manchester City, thereby dropping into the knockout stage of the Europa League.

Celtic assistant manager Chris Davies said: “Leigh’s not very well so he won’t be travelling out.

“With Jozo we’re building up his progression because he was out for a long time so he won’t travel. Kolo’s still got a slight issue.”

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