{"id":626397,"date":"2026-04-24T21:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T21:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/626397\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T21:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T21:43:11","slug":"canada-right-back-alistair-johnston-hamstring-in-line-for-celtic-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/626397\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada right-back Alistair Johnston (hamstring) in line for Celtic return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Alistair Johnston\u2019s return to the Celtic squad appears to be at hand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Manager Martin O\u2019Neill said Friday that the Canada right-back could feature in Saturday\u2019s match against Falkirk.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\ud83d\udde3\ufe0f Martin O\u2019Neill confirms Alistair Johnston is in line to be in the squad tomorrow against Falkirk: <\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udf99\ufe0f Speaking to the media today, the Celtic boss said: \u201cWell, Alistair Johnston is coming back. I&#8217;m hoping that he will be in the squad tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo that&#8217;s good news for us.\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 celtsmedia (@celtsmedia) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/celtsmedia\/status\/2047682852934824383?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">April 24, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019m hoping that he will be in the squad tomorrow,\u201d O\u2019Neill said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Johnston, 27, has been out of action since October with a hamstring injury. Initially picking up the injury in a Champions League qualifier in August against FC Kairat, he aggravated it in a Europa League match against Sturm Graz on Oct. 23.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Thanks to the injury, Johnston\u2019s domestic campaign has been limited to two league appearances in August. Joining up with Canada during the March international window, Johnston experienced a setback of the injury during training, delaying his comeback for several more weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">A native of Vancouver, Johnston is in his fourth season in Glasgow following a move from CF Montreal. During his time in Scotland, Johnston has won three Premiership titles, two League Cups and two Scottish Cups.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Internationally, Johnston has been capped 56 times by Canada and was a member of the squad at both the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar and the 2024 Copa America.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Celtic currently sits third in the table, three points behind leaders Hearts and two back of second-place Rangers.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alistair Johnston\u2019s return to the Celtic squad appears to be at hand. Manager Martin O\u2019Neill said Friday that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[712,49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-626397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}