Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers last night revealed that Norwegian defender Kristoffer Ajer sustained a serious eye injury in the stalemate against Livingston yesterday afternoon.

The 20-year-old defender faces a lengthy spell on the sidelines with an operation anticipated this week on a fractured eye socket.

Rodgers insisted that the injury was purely accidental after the towering defender was involved in a clash of heads at a Celtic corner with Livingston captain Craig Halkett.

“He’s struggling – he’s broken his eye socket and he’s in a lot of pain at the moment,” said the Celtic manager.

“He will need surgery which is a shame for him. He’s in a bit of pain. He’s in real agony around the area of his cheekbone. The medics will look after him and hopefully he can get that repaired as soon as possible.

“He’s a fantastic young player who’s a model professional. He does absolutely everything he can to be ready. It was a case of coming in today and it was just a really unfortunate incident. There was nothing in it. It was just during that wee bit we had in their box. He’s just headered down into their guy’s head.

“There was no fault on the part of the other player. It was just unfortunate.”

Rodgers was less sympathetic towards Livingston striker Dolly Menga. In a first-half flash point at a Celtic corner, Menga appeared to headbutt Ryan Christie with Rodgers irked that the player was not dismissed for the incident.

“He should have been sent off,” he said. “I thought so in real time. I thought he gestured his head towards Ryan and when I saw it after the game he was very, very lucky to stay on the pitch.”

Asked if Christie was too honest – the player made little of the altercation – Rodgers was dismissive. In any case, it seems certain that it will be reviewed by the compliance officer.

“If he goes down it doesn’t matter if the ref hasn’t seen it,” said Rodgers. “I assume he hasn’t seen it so if he goes down or not it doesn’t matter.

“It wasn’t a great action by the player so you can only assume they haven’t seen it.”

Livingston manager Gary Holt, inevitably, had a different take.

“I don’t think it can have been that much of an incident because I don’t think Christie made a big deal of it,” he shrugged. “I don’t think he went down. I honestly couldn’t tell you what flashpoint you are talking about until I have a look at it.”

Meanwhile. Rodgers has revealed that goalkeeper Craig Gordon will play no part in Scotland’s Nation’s League games against Albania and Israel. Scott Bain deputised yesterday afternoon with Rodgers explaining that Gordon has been struggling with a hip problem.

“I don’t think he’ll be fit for Scotland,” he said. “He did well to get through the game with his knee and then got an injury to his hip.

“We’ll assess him over the week but he won’t be fit for Scotland.”