Christopher Jullien: Celtic defender's absence explained by Ange Postecoglou

The absence of Christopher Jullien from the Celtic bench for recent games has raised concerns over the centre-back potentially having encountered another setback on his long road back from injury.

However, Ange Postecoglou has revealed Jullien’s failure to appear in the matchday squads for the wins over Rangers and Motherwell over the past eight days was down to selection considerations.

The Frenchman hasn’t featured in Celtic’s senior side since sustaining knee ligament damage colliding with the post during his club’s win over Dunde United on December 30, 2019. Celtic have since signed Carl Starfelt and Cameron Carter-Vickers, who have formed an impressive partnership, while academy graduate Stephen Welsh has also stepped up.

Jullien, 28, seemed on the verge of ending a year on the sidelines when he was named on the bench for the Scottish Cup win away to Alloa three weeks ago. He didn’t get game time, but retained his spot for the subsequent encounters with Hearts and Dundee United, before dropping out. For straightforward reasons, the Celtic manager has explained.

“Obviously when you are looking at the bench there is no point having too many players from one position in there,” he said as he prepared his squad for the midweek encounter in Aberdeen. “So from our perspective, the bench is there to, hopefully, help us during the game, and for the most part we have attacking players on there. But Chris is training well, he’s fit and available and will get an opportunity. But when that opportunity comes, we’ll see. It’s got to be right and he’ll get an opportunity soon.”