Celtic's manager, Gordon Strachan, will give Artur Boruc every opportunity to declare himself fit for tonight's Champions League visit of Shakhtar Donetsk, with the influential goalkeeper still suffering from a troublesome infection in his toes.
Boruc, who withdrew from Strachan's side for the weekend victory over Aberdeen 20 minutes before kick-off, managed only light training yesterday. He has been unable to kick the ball without feeling pain and even struggles to put his boots on due to inflammation in his toes.
The Pole was an impressive performer as Celtic progressed to the last 16 of this competition a year ago and the same feat will be achieved if they defeat Shakhtar by three goals or better this evening and Benfica fail to beat Milan in Lisbon. A draw or defeat tonight, though, will leave the Scots struggling to qualify from Group D.
"We will discover in the morning if Artur is comfortable enough to be able to do the things he needs to do," explained Strachan yesterday. "He has to make that decision. I believe in people having a presence and Artur has that but we have to deal with the situation, with or without him."
The Celtic manager places little emphasis on Shakhtar's last two Champions League outings, which have resulted in back-to-back defeats, 3-0 and 4-1 against Milan. Rather he is mindful of the Scottish champions' visit to Ukraine in September when they found themselves two goals behind within eight minutes; that there was no further scoring that evening owed more to Shakhtar's profligacy in front of goal than anything else.
"We made a mistake for the first goal that night and were in shock for 10 to 15 minutes," Strachan said. "It was similar to what happened to England (against Croatia) last week."
Scott McDonald, the striker who has scored 11 times in 11 league games this season and also claimed a memorable winner against Milan, believes a 3-0 win is within Celtic's capabilities. "We were quite dominant against Aberdeen and they never really hurt us at all," the Australian said. "That's probably down to the way we passed the ball and moved the ball quickly.
"Hopefully we can do that again and get the exact same result - a 3-0 win would mean we (should) go through, but we're not getting carried away."
Jiri Jarosik is set to retain his place in midfield, the former Chelsea midfielder having finally claimed a regular place.
CELTIC(probable): Boruc; Caldwell, Kennedy, McManus, Naylor; McGeady, Scott Brown, Hartley, Jarosik; Vennegoor of Hesselink, McDonald.
SHAKHTAR DONETSK(probable): Pyatov; Srna, Kucher, Hubschman, Rat; Lewandowski; Ilsinho, Fernandinho, Castillo; Lucarelli, Brandao.
