Brendan Rodgers has hit out at the punishing Premiership winter schedule after being left with one fit winger for Dingwall.

Nicolas Kuhn and Daizen Maeda have been ruled out of the Ross County clash through injury, Luis Palma has suffered a family bereavement and James Forrest remains several weeks away from a return. Celtic have been left with just youngster Yang Hyun-jun as their only senior wide man as Rodgers counts the cost of the brutal run of six games in 19 days.

The Hoops face another six before the month is out – with key Champions League clashes with Young Boys and Aston Villa also on the horizon. Rodgers insisted the calendar needs considering with the winter break being binned this season due to the increased loan in Europe. He said: “It certainly it doesn't help.

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“Hopefully going forward, we can find solutions to that. The spotlight will be on ourselves and Rangers in European competitions.

“And you are going to come out the back end of a really, really gruelling schedule. So, like I said, we have to cope with it and maybe in the future the organisers can look at ways in which we can help.

“My bigger picture is that we used to know that December was going to be a hard schedule and it was about getting through all of that. Then you had your New Year's game and then a couple of weeks to reset, refresh and then go again for the second part of the season.

“To then actually have even more games in that period, now that we've had a break, it is a real challenge. You can't deny that. However we will do everything we can to produce the best performances and results and be focused on that as we possibly can be.”

Rodgers will not have the wide men tomorrow but expects Kuhn and Maeda to return next week and won’t be a doubt for the Young Boys European clash the following Wednesday. He said: “James certainly won't be available. The two boys could be ready for Tuesday (at Dundee).

“Daizen has obviously played a lot of football and just felt something that he didn't want to aggravate. He's gone for a scan so it's not too serious but it just rules him out of this game.

“Likewise with Nicholas, he felt something just in the warm-up the other night. He had the scan and it was nothing too serious. We’ll get them treatment and then we'll assess them for Tuesday's game.”

Rodgers insisted striker Kyogo WILL be in the squad for Dingwall after MLS outfit Atlanta United mistakenly posted on their website they’d signed the Hoops man.

The boss said: “I can guarantee he's on the coach and he's travelling to Ross County so he's certainly not in the MLS. Listen, you know in this period of time there's always lots of gossip and speculation around so many players, and especially talented players. So I'm sure that will continue to be the case over the coming weeks.

“I actually only knew about (the web announcement) five minutes ago so I was a wee bit surprised. As I said, we're very hopeful that we can get players in that we would like but availability and the affordability of players is always something that is a challenge in this month.

“But I'm fairly confident that we will be able to bring in the necessary changes to the squad that can help us. I've said before, I want to be able to bring in more attacking threat and more goals into our squad. I think January is always a really good month in order to add that freshness to your team. It's just about getting those deals over the line. I'm fairly hopeful that we can do that.”