Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers may not be too pleased with Mikael Lustig carrying on for Sweden on Monday evening, despite the player knowing there was a fitness issue at half time.
Sweden have had a terrible international break. First they lost to Austria 2-0 and on Monday were leading Turkey 2-0 at home, only to end up losing the match 2-3.
Lustig was one of his country’s best performers, but at half time he started to feel himself cramping up and had it not been an important match, he wouldn’t have continued.
The gamble didn’t pay off and the Celtic player had to leave the pitch through injury on 79 minutes, after which Turkey scored twice.
Aftonbladet quote Lustig as saying: “It was quite expected really. I already knew it at half time. It started to cramp and I knew already that it would only take a while.”
The Swedish newspaper asked the Celtic player if, therefore, it was stupid to play on.
“Well, we’ll see that. Hopefully I wake up tomorrow and everything is fine. Hard to say now. Had it been a training match I would not have played. But I trained two days before and it felt so good.”
Celtic face St Mirren away on Friday evening, and Rodgers will likely want to know as soon as possible if Lustig woke up on Tuesday fine or still in pain.
