Celtic host Kilmarnock at Celtic Park on Sunday at 4 PM, and one selection question sits above all the others: Cameron Carter-Vickers, in or out?
Nobody with the authority to answer it has done so. The background, set out in full on Saturday, is a half time hamstring complaint on Thursday night and a manager who has said nothing about Sunday since. The teamsheet, published around 3 PM, settles it.
The Case for Doubt
It starts with Martin O’Neill’s own words. He said (TCW) that Carter-Vickers was complaining of his hamstrings being very tight at half time against Besiktas, that the plan was another 15 minutes, and that the defender instead stayed on until the 78th minute.
The Celtic Bhoys’ injury roundup lists him as “Doubt, will be assessed”. That label is the roundup’s, not the club’s, but it is the only published assessment of him anywhere.
Celts Are Here report that Carter-Vickers does not appear in the club’s edited “Inside Training” footage from Lennoxtown on Saturday, and their predicted lineup for Sunday leaves him out, with Dane Murray in line to replace him.
Precision matters here. An edited club video is not a training register, and not appearing in it is not proof that a player missed training. It is a non-sighting, and on its own it proves nothing.
The oldest item in the file, a syndicated ratings line saying he limped off on Thursday, remains uncorroborated by any other report.
The Case for Plays
He played on. Carter-Vickers completed 78 minutes of a match Celtic were chasing and came back to win, and O’Neill called him “very strong” in the same breath as the hamstring complaint.
The substitution was framed afterward as a planned change, workload management overtaken by the match, not an emergency withdrawal (PA).
Sports Mole’s preview starts him against Kilmarnock and records that Celtic emerged from Thursday “without any further injury concerns”. That line is Sports Mole’s reading of the situation, not a club statement, and it should be weighed as such.
Other predicted lineups agree with Sports Mole rather than Celts Are Here. The 4th Official’s predicted XI keeps Carter-Vickers and Liam Scales as the central pairing.
And two days on from Thursday, no established outlet has reported treatment, a scan, or an injury diagnosis of any kind.
The Official Position Is Silence
Since Thursday night, neither Celtic nor O’Neill has offered a fitness ruling in either direction. No update, no all clear, and no doubt label from the club itself.
That silence is the actual state of the record. Everything else is inference, in both directions.
What Changes Each Way
If he is out, Murray, the man who replaced him on Thursday, starts, and the cover behind him is thin, with Auston Trusty away on compassionate leave.
If he plays, it is his third start in eight days, three games into a comeback from a six week muscular strain, and the workload question follows him into the international break.
Celtic are top of the table, four points clear of Rangers, who hold a game in hand. His United States route back, which runs through exactly these minutes, was covered in full in Saturday’s piece.
The answer arrives at around 3 PM on Sunday. Until then, in or out is a genuinely open question, and anyone telling you otherwise is guessing.
