CELTIC striker Kyogo will face a race against time to be fit for Sunday’s League Cup Final against Hibernian, but the forward should definitely be fit for the next Old Firm fixture, according to manager Ange Postecoglou.

The striker was absent from the 1-0 win over Motherwell at Celtic Park, with David Turnbull playing in a central attacking role and Tom Rogic scoring the only goal of the afternoon.

Postecoglou is unsure if Kyogo will recover in time for the game at Hampden after picking up the injury against Real Betis last Thursday night, but that he should definitely be back before the winter shutdown.

When asked if Kyogo could make the cup final, Postecoglou said: “Mate, I could say yes, I could say no. “If you ask Kyogo he probably would have played today, if you ask the medical team, they would say he’s out for two or three weeks.

“I’m kind of taking a stab in the dark in the middle somewhere, but I’ve no idea. I’ll be guided by the medical team and Kyogo. I can’t rule him out for anything at the moment, but you can’t rule him in.

“I don’t know. We’ll just wait and see. Like I’ve said, it’s not a significant one.

“Albian Ajeti probably won’t be back before the break but Kyogo will definitely be back before the break.

“It’s just a matter of seeing how he feels.”

Postecoglou revealed after the game that he took off substitute Mikey Johnston towards the end to protect him, after a gamble taken on James Forrest backfired as he went off early in the match with an injury.

“Mikey is not 100 per cent,” he said. “That’s why we didn’t start him.

“We were going to bring him on at the end if we needed him but obviously with James going off we had no choice.

“I didn’t want to overburden him towards the end. He’d done enough for us. He did a great job considering he’s not 100 per cent fit. It was always going to be a question of how long he could last.”

On Forrest’s injury, Postecoglou said: “I spoke with him and obviously it was significant enough for him to come off which is disappointing.

“Again, he hasn’t been 100 percent but we felt today that we could get an hour out of him but it didn’t work out.

“It’s not a great run we are going through. Unfortunately it’s in one area. It’s not as if it’s spread over the team which is really challenging us.

“As I said to the players pretty much the minute I walked through the door, we’ll have some kind of challenge put in front of us. When you dust it all down, we’re not in bad shape in terms of the way we are playing our football and our form in terms of results.

“We’ve just got to overcome this as well.”

Meanwhile, Postecoglou and Celtic are waiting for guidance on new Covid-19 restrictions after advice to clubs was muddied somewhat by National Clinical Director Jason Leitch during an appearance on BBC Radio Scotland on Saturday.

Clubs were informed by the JRG that one positive case of the new Omicron variant could result in an entire bus of players and staff being ordered to isolate for 10 days, leading Motherwell to travel to Celtic Park in their own cars.

Celtic face a trip to Dingwall to face Ross County on Wednesday night, with Postecoglou unsure of how they will negotiate the journey.

“We’re just waiting on clear guidance,” he said. “There have been some sort of protocols put in place.

“We’ve been pretty good at following the Covid guidelines, very good actually, within the club. We’ll continue to do that.

“It’s obviously an issue around the world, around sport and football in particular, but we’ll do what we’ve always done and follow the protocols, make sure we’re doing the right thing and make sure we’re organised so that it doesn’t affect us.”