Brendan Rodgers reveals Celtic plan to get Reo Hatate ready for Rangers as friendly action holds the key

Brendan Rodgers insists Reo Hatate’s return will be “huge” for Celtic as the Japan ace gets set to play in a closed-doors friendly over the next week.

The midfielder hasn’t started a game for the Hoops since October and not featured at all since January 2 after picking up a calf injury on Asian Cup duty with his country. But Rodgers has scheduled a bounce game for during the international break with Hatate among a clutch of players set to get valuable minutes into their legs.

And the Parkhead boss says he can’t wait to go into the home straight in the ferocious title race with close to a full squad for almost the first time this season. All going well Hatate will be back in the mix for the return to Premiership action against Livingston on March 31 - with the third Old Firm of the season arriving at Ibrox seven days later.

The 26-year-old has managed only 13 appearances for Celtic since Rodgers returned for a second spell in charge in the summer. But the manager reckons he can play a big part in the run-in with eight games remaining in the title race and a Scottish Cup semi final against Aberdeen a month away.

Rodgers revealed Hatate was back in training last week and “progressing well”. Now he’s set to step that up in a friendly. And Rodgers said: “Yeah, that’s the plan. We want to get minutes into Reo and push him on. We’ll get some of the players working here, have a game and get some of them up to speed. Reo will be huge for us.”

Rodgers has been beset by injury problems this season with Callum McGregor also missing the last three games and Cameron Carter-Vickers, Alistair Johnston, Daizen Maeda, Luis Palma and Yang Hyun-Jun being sidelines for spells throughout the campaign. Liam Scales was the latest to break