One for soro: Celt thanks is mail for his award help
Scottish Premiership Player of the Month, David Turn bull, has credited fellow Celtic breakthrough Ismail Soro with helping him win his award.
The 21-year-old received recognition for his performances in December, a month in which he scored three goals and claimed two assists.
And, he argued, he was not short of help with the Ivorian Soro an important part of his success.
“It is good playing with Soro. Since we changed to that diamond formation it has worked really well,” he said.
“Ismaila is intelligent and he is also a great tackler. Everybody knows how good he is at winning the ball back and it is great when he does that.
“And when he gets it back he is also great at feeding it through to myself and the front boys.
“He is a quiet character. He speaks a wee bit of English but is still learning the language.
“He laughs constantly and always has a smile on his face.
“I think it will be tough for him away from the football. Unlike the Scottish lads, he is a long way from home and he will need to find things to keep him occupied away from the training ground.
“He comes in every day and enjoys training.
“From a personal point of view, I came into the team early in December and I have tried to not look back since then.
“I have played well and enjoyed my football and I just hope to continue that. I want to get more goals and create more chances for the team.
“I knew I would need to bide my time when I came to Celtic.
“The job was to train as hard as I could and if I kept doing that I knew the chance would come.
“Any sub appearances I had I knew I had to impress but if I did that I was confident I would nail down a place in the team.”
Like Celtic assistant manager, John Kennedy, Turnbull is convinced of the value of the club’s controversial trip to Dubai.
“Obviously we were away and everybody bonded together,” he said, ahead of the Hoops’ Premiership game with Hibs tomorrow.
“It was good for the team spirit and helped us all get to know each other. It’s definitely helped us that way.
“We worked hard every day, trained as hard as we could.
“Now we are back and it is about going into each game, playing the best we can and ticking off the results.
“We played well in the first half at Ibrox, we dominated the game until the big moment.
“We worked our socks off to stop them from playing.”