JULLIEN ISN’T MAD ABOUT N’DOYE BUT HE RELISHES PHYSICAL CONFRONTATION
Celtic defender ready for physical challenge
IN old-fashioned football parlance, it might generously have been termed as a welcome-to-the-game challenge. As Celtic strolled around the Parken Stadium in the early stages last Thursday a goal to the good, Dame N’Doye evidently felt he had to do something — anything — to knock the visitors out of their stride.
Christopher Jullien was cast in the role as the unwitting victim, taking the Senegalese striker’s forehead full in the face, having been the clear favourite to claim the high ball.
But if N’Doye’s thought process had been to somehow stir his team-mates into action, the course of the game thereafter suggests that he might just have been onto something.
Ahead of tonight’s return, as Neil Lennon’s side hope to press home the advantage of a 1-1 draw in the first leg, Jullien believes Celtic have to be ready to withstand more of the same treatment.
This time, however, the Frenchman predicts that such an industrial approach will cut no ice.
‘I remember that incident — and so does my dentist,’ said Jullien after an unscheduled visit upon his return.
‘It was a bad one but, when I take the field, I always want to give it everything I’ve got and I had no intention of leaving my partner or the rest of my team-mates.
‘We were only 10-15 minutes into the game at that stage and I had plenty of energy. I was excited about the tie and, in my head, it was impossible for me to leave the pitch.
‘I lost some parts of my teeth but it’s okay — my dentist is good. It’s important to let other teams know that we won’t be bullied. Every game is tough, but we always get up from the ground and we do that after every bad moment.
‘If a team tries to rough us up, then we’ll just keep trying to do our best, again and again and again.’
Despite playing in Germany and France prior to moving to Scotland last summer, Jullien admits that the added physicality of the game here took some getting used to.
He’s learned fast, though. Now au fait with our version of the dark arts, the kind of treatment N’Doye subjected him to was just another day at the office.
‘After certain games, I’m not happy to come off covered in bruises but it is what it is,’ the 26-year-old explained.
‘In Scotland and England, the game is more physical and there is always going to be an element of going to battle. I’m ready for that now.’
Jullien has gradually grown to relish his new environment. Openly admitting that victory is sweeter after 90 minutes of physical and verbal jousting, he smiled: ‘Always, for sure. When there is a bit of trash talk and little things off the ball, even contact and stuff like that, to win then is more enjoyable.
‘I think I can say yes (there is more of that in Scotland) but I am in a different position here. I am in the big team here, so it is me that is now doing it, whereas before, I was on the receiving end. I try to get into the head of the striker or my opponent, but that all stays on the pitch.
‘Sometimes I prefer to ignore opponents and sometimes I prefer to use it to try and get into the head of the striker and to play with him.
‘Sometimes I lose. I’ll try to speak to the striker and then if he scores, that’s my bad. I just have to take it.’
Far more often than not, the £7million summer signing from Toulouse has enjoyed the last laugh on his direct opponent.
Livingston in October was a rare exception to that rule for Jullien, who was given the runaround by Lyndon Dykes as Celtic lost 2-0.
‘For sure. I’ve said it multiple times,’ he added. ‘When I spoke after the Livingston game, people were asking why I talked so much about that match. Now, they say they know why it was so important to me, because after that game we were a different team.’
Who’s to argue with that? Since that loss, Lennon’s men have played 29 games across all competitions, winning 26.
If ever the hoary old cliché about learning more in defeat than victory rang true, that day in West Lothian was it.
‘In my head, when I arrived here, I thought I was invincible,’ said Jullien. ‘I’d had heard about the Invincibles and wanted to come here and do that — have a perfect season and win everything. But that was our first (domestic) defeat.
‘After that mistake, we got up. After the loss (to Rangers) in December, we got up again to the team we are now. We react so well in bad moments and this is how we show our character.’ On record as saying in the autumn that Celtic could win the Europa League outright, Jullien plans to tread more carefully in future. ‘When you have confidence, you think you are the best in the world,’ he reflected. ‘But when you are going through the competition and seeing all the good teams, you make it game-by-game focus and see how you perform. ‘I just looked at it myself and thought: “Hmmm, that was maybe too cocky”. I probably should not say that because football can go fast. A game can be so random, a penalty or something. ‘We know our qualities and we trust each other. We have a stadium like a 12th man and we have everything with us, but football is football.’