NEIL LENNON says that Odsonne Edouard is ready and ‘itching to play’ for Celtic tonight in Riga after being rested for the weekend win over Livingston.
Celtic’s star man was left on the bench for the 3-2 victory over Gary Holt’s side, with his manager later revealing that Edouard had told him he was feeling fatigued, and subsequently denying his omission had anything to do with transfer speculation surrounding the striker.
And as the team arrived in the Latvian capital, Lennon insisted that the 22-year-old is refreshed and ready to sink Riga this evening.
“He’s trained well the last couple of days and he’s looking forward to playing,” Lennon said. “He’s itching to play. To be fair, all of them are.
“We have a lot of games and, sometimes, you have to listen to where the player is coming from.
“He missed a couple of games, came back in and three games in a week might have been too much for him.
“We made the right decision. We won the [Livingston] game, he’s fresh and it sets us up nicely for this game.
“We are trying to keep it as fresh and as balanced as we can. If we can negotiate this, it’s Hibs at the weekend, then another Euro game, then St Johnstone after that, so it’s still a lot of games.”
Defender Christopher Jullien didn’t make the trip as he is still suffering from the back spasm that has kept him sidelined since the win over Ross County, but Lennon says the rest of his squad are in decent fettle despite being confined to barracks as a precaution during their trip to Latvia.
“The boys are okay,” he said. They are restricted to their hotel, so that is something we have not used to. It’s been hot.
“Basically, we came out early because we wanted to make sure everything ran smoothly.
“You are not sure really what you are going into and it is very strict. We were tested again on Wednesday morning and that was our second test of the week.
“We can’t leave the hotel and can only go to the ground for training and then for the game.
“We just wanted to cover all of the bases and make sure there were no mishaps.”
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