Steven Gerrard remains unhappy with the prospect of playing on a plastic pitch against Kilmarnock tonight, hoping that his players come through the match without sustaining injury.
Gerrard went on the record last year about his belief that football shouldn’t be played on artificial surfaces at the elite level, with Jamie Murphy suffering a serious injury thought to be in part due to the surface at Rugby park.
His opinions haven’t changed on the matter and he has admitted it’s a problem this evening.
As quoted by BBC Scotland, the Gers boss said:
I’ve already given my opinion on plastic pitches at the elite level of football and they should be nowhere to be seen. I can’t change that in 24 hours. I do know that every single manager at this level doesn’t want plastic pitches.
But we have to respect the fact that Kilmarnock have got one and we have to go there and perform. We’ve been there and done it before. Of course, it cost us Jamie Murphy, which was a huge blow.
Hopefully both sets of players come through the game healthy because there’s nothing worse than seeing any player suffer that type of injury.
Avoiding injuries at this stage of the season is absolute crucial, with little room for setback between now and the end of the Scottish Premiership title race.
It’s been a long time since we beat Celtic at Ibrox so we need to follow that up with a win this evening and really keep the pressure on Brendan Rodgers’ side, who should win against St Mirren.
Bad pitch or not, everything needs to go to plan.