Celtic’s Tom Rogic missed the Hoops’ last game due to international duty.
Tom Rogic was the subject of outrage from Celtic fans last week.
Rogic missed the 1-0 defeat at Rangers on December 29 after Australia demanded that he report for international duty immediately after the win at Aberdeen on Boxing Day.
You can understand Celtic fans’ frustration, then, when Socceroos boss Graham Arnold didn’t include the 26-year-old in his squad for the game with Oman recently.
On the surface, it seemed like Arnold could have probably let Rogic play for the Hoops at Ibrox, if he wasn’t going to use him in the first game.
But the 55-year-old manager has revealed to The Scottish Sun that it was actually Celtic who recommended that he not play against Oman, after the Premiership champions raised concerns about a ‘knee issue’ by email.
Arnold said: “We received an email from Celtic asking us not to play him because he had a knee issue. So we didn’t play him.
“Mark Bosnich has said I’ve left him out on purpose and that I’m a poor man. I didn’t do it.
“He’s got a small knee issue and it blew up on the plane, on the flight. He’s here because he wants to be here.”
It’s a plausible explanation by Arnold, who obviously didn’t omit him out of spite. Rogic has a history of worrying knee problems, and the fact that he didn’t face Oman – a game that Australia won 4-0 nonetheless – is certainly a good thing if there were doubts about his fitness.
The Celtic star has to be managed very carefully and it seems like the Bhoys have done that by alerting Australia of a potential problem.
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