Zenit St Petersburg’s Branislav Ivanovic has returned to full training ahead of his side’s Europa League clash with Celtic.
The 33-year-old suffered an eye injury that had caused him to be unable to train since the start of the year, and the Russian giants ordered him to rest ahead of their league starting as well as their meeting with the Hoops.
The rest seems to have helped Ivanovic’s recovery as manager Roberto Mancini confirmed that the defender was now fine to train.
“Branislav is fine and is back in full training again at the winter camp,” said Mancini as quoted by the Daily Record.
Ahead of getting injured Ivanovic played 27 times across all competitions, and missed one league game during the club’s last campaign.
Out of those 27 appearances four of them were made in the Europa League, and the defender helped his side win all the games in the competition that he appeared in.
OPINION
Ivanovic is a key player for Zenit and it would have helped Celtic get a result if the player missed the game. With him featuring in Zenit’s defence, he helps make his side harder to score against, and with Celtic set to be missing Leigh Griffiths for the clash, they needed the help scoring in the fixture. Griffiths had arguably been the Hoops’ best striker this season, with Moussa Dembele not firing on all cylinders. However, if Dembele performs to the best of his ability, he should be able to score against Zenit even if Ivanovic is playing, as the striker has enough skill to score against any defence in Europe.