Daizen Maeda: Celtic winger hamstring injury blow for Scottish Premiership leaders

Daizen Maeda has been ruled out of Celtic’s weekend match with St Mirren with a hamstring injury and could miss more games in the season run-in.

Liam Scales is also expected to miss out for the Scottish Premiership leaders’ visit of St Mirren.

“He picked up an injury high up in his hamstring, his tendon,” said Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers of Maeda.

“We will have to see what that looks like in the coming weeks. But he is certainly not available for the weekend.

“We will see where it goes in the next week or so and then we will understand better what inclusion he will have between now and the end of the season.

“Liam Scales has picked up a slight strain in his abductor so the likelihood is that he won’t be involved.”

Winger Luis Palma is available again following a calf problem while captain and midfielder Callum McGregor returned from an Achilles injury at Ibrox.

Celtic can move four points clear of Rangers by winning on Saturday, with their city rivals away to Ross County and Dundee on Sunday and Wednesday, respectively.

“He has come through well,” Rodgers said of his skipper. “We are still clearly managing him.

“He did absolutely incredible to be available for the game. The timeline was beyond Rangers but he worked so hard, he wanted to put himself out there.

“He had only trained a few days coming into the game, so this week has been another good week for him. We just have to manage it, he is not out the woods at all.

“But seeing him in training earlier, he looked really good. But it’s also recognising that he had been out quite a long time and, no matter who you are, if you’ve missed five-odd weeks of training, you are not obviously going to be at your best level of football fitness-wise.”