Celtic defender Alistair Johnston has already spent a lot of time in the United States this summer but he won’t be joining the Bhoys on their three-game swing in the country later this month.
Johnston has not yet left the Copa America tournament with Canada, who play a third-place playoff match against Uruguay tonight.
His 2023/24 season is still technically going and he’ll need an extended holiday break to get himself ready for the new campaign.
Brendan Rodgers has confirmed that the initial plan for Johnston was for him to meet up with the squad in the States, but since his country has done so well in the tournament that’s no longer possible.
The right-back will now return to Lennoxtown in the week building up to Celtic’s first competitive fixture at home to Kilmarnock.
Brendan Rodgers on Alistair Johnston
The Celtic manager said [Daily Record]: “Incredibly, his season is still going. It’s absolutely brilliant. He’s got obviously one more game to go at the weekend and then he’ll have a breather.
“He had a plan and we were probably anticipating that they might not have got to where they were. So he would have had to meet us there.
“But no, we’ll allow him to have a rest and then bring him back and then he’ll be ready to join us for the last week. He’s had a really good tournament and we’ll see him when we come back from America.”
Celtic will have to manage Johnston’s fitness carefully
Even with a two-week holiday, Johnston’s summer will have been incredibly compressed and Celtic will have to manage his game time carefully in the opening weeks of the season.
The Canadian will be looked at as a player to feature in the vast majority of games over the coming campaign but that might require him to not be relied upon as heavily to begin with.
It could be an opportunity for Anthony Ralston to stake a claim for the right-back position. Rodgers stated back in May that the Scotland international would be featuring more for him in 2024/25 and we could see that play out quite quickly.
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