Cameron Carter-Vickers wants more game time to help regain fitness after injury

Celtic defender Cameron Carter-Vickers feels getting up to speed in competitive matches following knee surgery is the “perfect” solution after playing through pain for most of last season.

The centre-back played the full game as Celtic began their cinch Premiership campaign with a 4-2 win over Ross County last Saturday, despite only getting 45 minutes of pre-season action.

“That’s how I want to do it,” he said ahead of Sunday’s trip to Aberdeen. “The best way to get fitness is to play games, so it’s perfect for me.

“I feel good, even though I didn’t train with the team until about 10 days ago, I was running on my own for a while. So physically I feel good and I’m ready to play.”

Carter-Vickers had been out for three months after being booked in for knee surgery immediately after Celtic’s Scottish Cup semi-final win over Rangers.

The 25-year-old had been troubled by knee pain for the majority of the campaign but it was not evident in his impressive performances.

“It was quite a while,” he said. “Long before Christmas I initially did it. The pain wasn’t bad consistently, there were lows and highs, but it was definitely something I needed to get sorted and now that it is I am in a good spot.

“My understanding of the injury was, the likelihood was it was never going to get worse in terms of the actual damage in the knee.

“So it wasn’t too much of a risk. It was just mainly pain management. Some weeks I maybe wouldn’t train at the start of the week, I would just come in towards the end of the week to be ready for the game.

“It was about managing the pain and trying to play 90 minutes at the weekend really.