CCV TIPS THE SCALES FOR GIANT STEPS
CAMERON CARTERVICKERS has hailed Liam scales for dealing with the pressure of stepping up at Celtic this season as he revealed the success behind their central defensive partnership.
Hoops boss Brendan rodgers described scales as “one of the biggest surprises of my career as a coach” earlier in the season as he shone for Celts.
His form has earned him republic of Ireland caps and Carter-Vickers said: “Liam has done really well. He has played pretty much every game this season, which I’m sure if you asked him at the start of the season then he might not have believed to be true.
“He was always one of Aberdeen’s better players last season and when he came back from pre-season he was straight into the team and playing well.
“You can see he has taken that pressure on and has remained ever-present.
“As a centre-back partner, it doesn’t affect me if they are right or left-footed.
“It’s more about learning how your partner like to defend certain situations and what their tendencies are in defensive situations.
“Once you learn that then you can adapt your game to form the best partnership you can.
“Anytime you change the person you play with, you take a few game s to learn and adjust from that.
“The more you play with someone the more you build that connection.
“Our game-time has been been a bit here and there with my injuries, but I’m hopeful we can continue to build that connection with more games.”
Carter-Vickers has been frustrated after a stop-start season but is raring to go at the business end of the campaign.
The 26-year-old American told the Celtic View: “It does feel different as the closer you get to the end of the season the games feel like they matter more.
“Even though there is more on the games, we try and keep things as simple as we can and focus on the stuff we can control and do it the best we can.
“The goal is to continue to improve, so naturally you should be at your best at the end of the season.
“This season for me, I have had a lot of injuries so it’s been hard to focus on improving when the focus has been on getting fit and playing.
“For the squad as a whole, the aim is to be at this point of the season playing our best.
“The season overall has been frustrating as I want to play as much as I can to help the team. Not being able to to do that has been frustrating.
“The injury itself has been a recurring hamstring issue which can be down to a lot of things, but I think we have found out why that is.
“I’ve been working a lot in the gym with certain treatments to try and correct the problem, so fingers crossed it’s all OK.
“We have a semi-final against Aberdeen to look forward to and I’ve been lucky to play at Hampden quite a lot. Every time you go there the atmosphere is always good.
“The league and cup is clearly about results because you need to win games and win trophies.”