Celtic recall midfielder Ewan Henderson from Ross County

Ross County have been hit with a blow just 24 hours before facing Celtic after the Hoops opted to recall Ewan Henderson.

The Parkhead youngster would not have been eligible to face his parent club in Glasgow on Saturday.

But the decision to cancel his Staggies loan switch six months early will disappoint County bosses Steven Ferguson and Stuart Kettlewell.

Celtic manager Neil Lennon was hoping the 19-year-old would pick up some valuable first-team experience in Dingwall.

But after seeing him make just nine appearance – and only six starts – he called the arrangement off.

Lennon said: “Ewan has already played with us in a European qualifier so he will be around the first-team training for the rest of the season as I don’t think we can loan him out to another club.

“It’s great to see him back. He enjoyed the experience (at County). He played maybe not as much as we’d have liked him to and that’s something we’ll look at in the future.

“I’m not saying it was a bad loan. He got some decent experience but we would have liked him to have played more games.”

Meanwhile, Ferguson says his side have taken encouragement from Wednesday’s goalless draw with Hearts.

County were dumped out of the Scottish Cup by Ayr last weekend but dusted themselves down to claim a point off the Jambos.

But Ferguson admits they will need to raise their levels again if they are to take anything away from Parkhead.

He said: “We feel better going into a game against the champions after Wednesday night than we did on Saturday, so that’s a positive.

“The clean sheet was huge. The back four and goalkeeper will take a lot of credit for that but collectively we felt we defended really well as an XI and limited Hearts to very few chances.

“We’ll need to do that again at Celtic Park. We’ll need to do it more. We’re under no illusions. We’ve not done well against Celtic this season.

“But we feel we can definitely do better and that’s what we aim to do.”