Nigeria star Kelechi Iheanacho nears long-awaited return as Celtic prepare for Roma showdown

Nigeria international Kelechi Iheanacho is edging closer to full fitness as Celtic gears up for AS Roma showdown in the Europa League at Celtic Park.

Iheanacho, who joined Celtic in the summer, has been out since October after succumbing to a hamstring injury, just four minutes into their 2-1 Europa League win over Sturm Graz.

Since the setback, the Super Eagles star has missed a couple of games for Celtic, including the League Cup semifinal against Rangers.

After almost two months absence, Iheanacho has finally returned to full training and was included on the bench during Celtic’s 2–1 defeat to league leaders Hearts last Sunday, but did not feature in the match.

However, Celtic new manager Nancy provided a detailed update on Iheanacho’s recovery and readiness for competitive action.

“He has trained well,” the Celtic boss said. After that, he needs minutes. It has been a long time, two months since he really played. “The way we work the players who have not played regularly we try to get them through physical work to get back into the rhythm. “

For the moment obviously he is not fit to play a lot of minutes but a few minutes, yes. I have to understand that also in the past they did not rotate much. So I have done my work on that. I believe we have the players to do that but it has to be step by step.”

The former Leicester City and Sevilla star has not featured for Nigeria since the Unity Cup game against Jamaica, and his hopes of returning for the 2026 World Cup qualifiers were cut short when injury struck.

Before the injury, the former U17 World Cup Golden Ball winner had four goal contributions in eight appearances.