Johnston out to grab fresh Celts chance
The only break Mikey Johnston is looking for now is to get into the Celtic first team and show he is over his injury issues.
The winger has come f lying back to pre-season and was the standout performer in Wednesday’s friendly win over Wiener Viktoria with a goal and numerous assists in the 7- 0 rout.
Now Johnston just wants a run of games to get back enjoying his football again after too long on the sidelines.
He said: “It’s been a long summer, I had a lot of bits and bobs with injuries last year.
“So I just want to get off to a good start and cruise through the season, hopefully stay injury free and fit and enjoy my football again.
“You can’t plan for it. But there are definitely a lot of things you can do to avoid it and I would say I’m doing a lot better.”
Ange Postecoglou has already thrown down the gauntlet and told him he needs to hit the same levels as Jota, Liel Abada and James Forrest.
Johnston said: “I just want to enjoy football again. I just want to be playing my best and show everyone how good I am. That’s it.
“I never really got a proper injury until I was maybe 19 and then they have all come at once.
“I don’t really like talking about injuries all the time, it’s always what we’re talking about with me.
“I want to kind of break that stigma – and just show everyone.”
Celtic move on to Ostrava next week and Johnston insists Postecoglou has his squad in a good place.
Speaking to CelticTV, the winger added: “The training has been tough. We had the training last week and that was really tough and the international boys missed it. They were lucky!
“But this week has been the same again. They’ve done a bit more than us training wise because they missed last week. But we’ve had the game as well.
“So it’s always tough pre-season but that’s what it’s about. About getting fit.
“Every game we play we play the exact same. We just try to implement what the manager wants.”