Rangers officials were concerned about the pair being near home fans
Former Celtic duo Chris Sutton and Neil Lennon have been banned from attending Ibrox for Rangers’ Europa League game against Lyon.
The pair were meant to be part of BT Sport’s coverage of Celtic and Rangers’ Thursday night Europa League fixtures, with the broadcasters covering the Hoops’ clash against Real Betis before focusing on the Gers’ home tie against Lyon.
With Celtic playing away, the plan was to cover both games from Ibrox. However, senior officials at Rangers decided against accommodating the broadcaster’s request as they were worried about having Sutton and Lennon working so close to the home fans.
BT have since removed the pair from punditry duties, with a new panel set to cover the Celtic clash – which kicks off at 5:45pm – from a studio in London.
Despite sitting in fifth place in the Scottish Premiership table, the Hoops are set to receive a much-needed injury boost with Kyogo Furuhashi making positive progress in his rehabilitation from an injury he picked up on international duty.
The 26-year-old was missing for Celtic’s win against Ross County at the weekend and will also be sidelined for Thurday’s Europa League opener against Betis.
However, the Japanese forward, who has made an exceptional start to life in Scotland since arriving at Parkhead in the summer, scoring seven goals including a well-taken hat-trick against Dundee, could be back from injury sooner than originally feared.
“As everyone is aware he picked up an injury playing with the national team,” said Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou.
“We have got him back and the initial assessment is we are looking at least three to four weeks at this stage which means he will miss the next few games.
“But at the same time, he is pretty optimistic about working hard to get back so we will just have to wait and see.”
The former Vissel Kobe man took to Instagram to provide Celtic fans will an update on his progression.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CT2EhLnsQrZ/?utm_medium=copy_link
The picture, which shows himself in action, was captioned “looking forward”, accompanied by the “back soon” and “strong man” emojis.
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