Cameron Carter-Vickers.

That's the spirit!

 

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The American centre-back was a model of consistency last season, making 44 appearances across all competitions and missing only a handful of games due to minor knocks. However, that same report raised fears over his fitness, causing unnecessary alarm among supporters.




Thankfully, CeltsAreHere can reassure everyone that those worries are unfounded. From our Substack update on Wednesday, it’s clear that Carter‑Vickers isn’t currently carrying any long‑term injury concerns. Yes, he’s come off a physically draining campaign and, like any high-minute regular, picked up a few niggles – but none of them are serious.


It seems safe to say the Daily Record may have jumped the gun on this one, presenting a worst-case scenario that simply doesn’t reflect the current situation at Lennoxtown.

The hope is for him to put in a full summer, returning sharper than ever for the 2025/26 campaign.

Carter‑Vickers remains a crucial part of Brendan Rodgers’ back‑line plans, and his presence throughout pre‑season will only strengthen the Hoops’ defensive depth.

He’s been a rock at the back, and his quality is going to be much-needed as Celtic negotiate Champions League qualifiers in August.

 

Cameron Carter-Vickers is on course to be fit for the start of the coming campaign despite undergoing knee surgery earlier this summer.


Record Sport revealed earlier this week that the American international has been left to train on his own at the club’s Lennoxtown HQ while boss Brendan Rodgers has been putting the rest of his team mates through their pre-season paces.


That sparked concern that Carter-Vickers might be facing another stretch on the sidelines after struggling with a long-term cartilage issue.




But now we can confirm that Celtic's 27-year-old defensive linchpin did indeed go under the knife for what is being described as a ‘tidy up’ operation.



Carter-Vickers was instructed by the club’s medics to withdraw from the US international squad for a packed summer schedule of friendlies and Concacaf Gold Cup clashes, which concludes next week with a tie against Mexico.

That decision was made at a time when Rangers were allowing John Souttar to delay hernia surgery to join up with Scotland for end of bounce matches against Iceland and Liechtenstein.


Souttar is now racing against the clock to be fit in time for a Champions League qualifier against Panathinaikos on July 22.

But, although Carter-Vickers is not yet ready to rejoin his team mates in full training and will not feature in the club’s first pre-season friendly against Queens Park on Friday night or travel to Ireland to face Cork next week, Rodgers is confident of having his star defender back with the squad in days rather than weeks,

A source said: “Cameron had the issue at the end of last season so he was taken out of the internationals to have the problem cleared up. He is just about ready to begin training again.”

 

Crucial he’s fit for CL qualifiers, always seems to be playing with pretty debilitating injuries. It’s frustrating going into the season almost certainly you are gonna be without him for a block of games at some point. Would like to see that centre half area tidied up this Summer with a clear hierarchy and a new left sided centre half. I’m not convinced the Japanese centre half is gonna waltz in and surprise us. Also two small centre halves domestically isn’t gonna work away from home if he does play with CCV.

 

As CeltsAreHere reported earlier this week, there is no ongoing long-term concerns over Carter-Vickers’ condition. The American international played 44 matches last season, but carried a few niggling issues into the summer break. His fitness concern did ramp up towards the end of the season.



Rodgers has now revealed the centre-half underwent a small clean-up operation to deal with those problems and has returned to training as planned, so there are no long-term concerns for the player.

Speaking to CeltsAreHere following Celtic’s pre-season win over Queen’s Park, Rodgers said: “Yes, he was out training today. He had some issues around the end of last season. But we decided this was really important for him. He needed that to get the operation. We knew then the recovery time would just be the week or so. He’d miss a week. But he’s back working again and, hopefully, be ready for the next few weeks


The manager’s update will come as a relief given Carter-Vickers’ vital role at the heart of Celtic’s defence. With Maik Nawrocki and Gustaf Lagerbielke both expected to depart this summer, the American’s fitness will be key as Rodgers reshapes his backline ahead of the Champions League qualifiers.

 

Those sort of operations happen all the time. So not sounding terrible.

Sure about 2 seasons ago CCV, Bain, Ralston, Taylor and maybe one other all flew down at the same time for similar.

Hopefully using the off-season break wisely here as opposed to anything else.

 

With the squad in Portugal now

 

Beautiful sight this....

 

while Cameron Carter-Vickers got more minutes after his surgery in the off-season. However, both still have a way to go to catch up with their team-mates.

"He's a number of weeks behind them," Rodgers said of Carter-Vickers. "It's that mixture between giving them game time and looking after them, because you can overdo it.

 

Big man has got a lot plenty work ahead of him to get back to the top of his game, can tell he's just back from surgery and catching up. Full week of training hopefully sees him closer to full fitness.

 

Bit of a balancing act with him.

Needs games to get sharpness back but the last time he had surgery post season and started pre season late, he done his hamstring in the 2nd game and struggled with injury up till Xmas.

Really need to be careful with him with so many big games in the next month

 

Cameron Carter-Vickers is happy at Celtic as the central defender looks forward to another season in the Hoops. The USA Internationalist has stepped up his pre-season preparations in recent weeks as he looks to get ready for the new campaign but there have been rumours this summer that he could be tempted to the English Premier League



Sources close to the player’s camp have confirmed to The Celtic Star that Carter-Vickers is happy at Celtic despite links earlier this summer suggesting that he may seek an exit.



Sunderland, Leeds and West Ham were credited with an interest in the ball playing central defender, all of which have aspirations to stay in the top flight next season. However, the update from CCV’s end is positive and suggests that there’s little desire from the defender to force a move elsewhere




CCV has been one of Celtic’s best signings in recent years, coming into the team and making that position at right centre back his own. Initially signing on loan, CCV struck up a partnership with Carl Starfelt that was successful under Ange Postecoglou before Brendan took charge. The Irishman has struggled to find a regular partner for CCV with Liam Scales and Auston Trusty currently battling it out for the left sided slot. Injuries have been a concern for the player too, who will need to be managed to ensure he’s available for the biggest games in the campaign.




Mauricio Pochettino didn’t call the player up for internationals at the end of last season but it appears that the player was struggling with an injury rather than being overlooked. Plus, the ex-Spurs boss was taking the opportunity to have a look at MLS based players.

 

He can say he's happy here and mean it, but at his age if a bigger money offer from england came in he could still push for it, would be his last big contract.

He's been fantastic for us overall, but the last couple of seasons especially he's had injury problems and some real rough patches of form because of it. Some never want to hear any criticism of him, keeping the image of peak CCV in their head and give him a bit of a free pass at times it feels to me, like Trusty has been taking some real pelters about not being good enough but I don't think he's really had a worse season than CCV overall with some proper standout performances in europe from him. We've had to manage in plenty of big games without him because of injury in his time here, as good as he can be I don't think he's as irreplaceable as some people will insist.

Similar to when Kyogo left a lot of fans still had the idea of him at his peak in their head, when in reality he'd been missing a barrel load of chances and nowhere near his peak level for the better part of a year, if he was here I'd still have him ahead of Idah all day long, but he avoided a lot of criticism and had people deflecting the blame on to Rodgers tactics, but tactics not suiting him as much as Ange's did doesn't really excuse missing the target from 8 yards out.