Rodgers delivers latest Celtic injury update ahead of Brenchin City clash

New Celtic signing Marvin Compper will now have to wait until a month before making his competitive debut for the Scottish Premiership leaders.

The central defender who joined the club for £1m from RB Leipzig has been ruled out of action with a calf injury.

Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers’ side face Brechin City in the Scottish Cup on Saturday.

Rodgers said of the 32-year-old:

“He was unfortunate that he got injured when he was out there so we will have to wait and see how long that’s going to be.”

“It looks like it could be three to four weeks.

“That’s unfortunate, but he has settled into the squad well. Marvin has gelled very well.”

The club’s only other January signing is winger Lewis Morgan, who has been sent back on-loan to St Mirren and the Bhoys boss expects to make further signings before the January transfer closed.

Rodgers says his side share of Virgil van Dijk’s £75m transfer from Southampton to Liverpool is a welcome addition to the club’s transfer budget but that he is looking for “quality, not numbers”.

“Yes I expect so,” he said when quizzed on whether he had plans to make further signings. “I think that it is something we’ll look to do.

“But we stay calm. We have a month to do it.

“For us, it’s all about trying to get the quality and not necessarily about numbers. It’s about trying to get in the players who can make a difference for us.”

Rodgers stressed that, despite the German’s injury and Erik Sviatchenko out on loan to Midtjylland, he is content with the numbers he has in central defence.

“I don’t know how many defenders you think we need,” he said. “We’ve brought in a defender, we’ve got two centre-halves playing, we’ve got Jozo Simunovic, so we’ve got four centre-halves.

“Erik needed to go out and play games. He’s a good guy but didn’t get the game time he wanted, so it made sense for him to go and get some games.”

There was another injury scare for the club earlier this week when it emerged that midfielder Stuart Armstrong had been rushed in for a hernia operation.

“He flew straight from Dubai to have his operation in Munich,” added Rodgers. “We got him in as quickly as we possibly could.

“He had a specialist operation where the recovery time for a hernia is a lot less.

“Hopefully he’ll be back training in 10 days.”

The Northern Irish boss believes the team has improved on last season and were superb in games and training in the winter break in Dubai this time around than they were last year.