Celtic injuries: Paulo Bernardo ruled out, James Forrest training
2025-02-14
Category: sports

Celtic midfielder Paulo Bernardo is likely to miss up to five weeks because of an ankle injury - but winger James Forrest is back in training.The Portugal Under-21 international sustained the injury during last weekend's Scottish Cup win over Raith Rovers and missed the 2-1 defeat by Bayern Munich in the Champions League play-offs.Scotland forward Forrest is not ready to return to first-team action but has started running again after the foot injury he picked up in the League Cup final win against Rangers in December."Paulo will be out for a few weeks. He's got his ankle in a boot, so maybe four or five weeks," said manager Brendan Rodgers. "He's done great for us this season and what we've tried to do is try to keep the players fit by rotating. Sadly he's out for a little while, but we've still got good numbers in that position."The absence of Bernardo will limit Rodgers' ability to rotate his midfield for Saturday's Scottish Premiership match with Dundee United, with the second leg in Munich to come on Tuesday.
"There are some positions that we'll freshen up," said Rodgers. "You can't not look at Tuesday because the turnaround is so fast. And we know that we'll have to be at a real high level physically for that game."But I also know we need to be at a good physical level for Saturday's game."Rodgers has stressed to his players that dealing with fatigue comes with playing for a club that is competing for multiple trophies."Every game is important here. It's been a real unrelenting schedule but the players have been brilliant," he added. "I said to Arne Engels when he came in at the beginning that his one-game-a-week holiday was finished at Augsburg! He now knows what I was talking about."