Strachan defends Balde in tackle row

Celtic manager Gordon Strachan has defended Bobo Balde following his leg-breaking challenge on Leicester’s James Wesolowski, insisting what happened was an accident.

The 17-year-old Foxes midfielder has undergone surgery today and has had a nail inserted into his shattered leg following Balde’s challenge in Tuesday’s friendly at the Walkers Stadium.

Foxes boss Craig Levein branded the tackle “disgraceful, disgusting and malicious” but opposite number Strachan reckons there was no intent.

He said: “The referee has to decide if there is intent and I don’t even think he gave a foul. He was the guy closest to it – not me or Craig Levein – and he decided there was no intent.

“You cannot blame someone for every incident. You cannot do that. What we need to be concerned about is the lad and we are now hoping the lad gets back to full fitness because until that point he was having a good game, he was enjoying himself.

“We wish him all the best and I will try to get in touch with him as soon as I can but I have been out the country since eight hours after the game finished.”

The Celtic manager missed the fall-out as a result of his spying mission in Bratislava ahead of next week’s Champions League qualifier against Artmedia, with the Slovakians eventually eliminating Kairat Almaty of Kazakhstan.

He said: “Artmedia are a good team. They played open football last night, they had to get those two goals, but I wouldn’t imagine they would play as wide open against us.

“They had to go for it last night, they went for it, they took gambles at times and it paid off in the end.”

Strachan admits his squad is more threadbare than he would like but he insists the players who are fit and available can cope with the challenges which lie ahead in the league and in Europe.

He said: “The fans understand it’s going to be hard for us because the squad is thin on the ground but we still feel confident. We have some young players that I‘m really looking forward to working with.”