The international week leaves many football fans with a feeling of frustration and boredom. But for Celtic fans, it seems that this window has been a relative success in terms of how some of their heroes have performed for their countries.
Reo Hatate is set to start for Japan today after impressing Hajime Moriyasu. Liam Scales got his international debut for the Republic of Ireland and Gustaf Lagerbielke scored for the Swedish side over the weekend.
How can it get any better? Well, it just did last night. Celtic winger, Mikey Johnston earned his sixth international cap for Ireland and topped it off with a well-taken reflex goal.
The 24-year-old has been kicking his heels on the Celtic sidelines but has been a regular for his country of late. And he has been playing so well that Ireland manager, Stephen Kenny, sent Celtic a message last night.
In a related development Stephen Kenny tells Rogers to consider making Mickey Johnston one of his regulars in the Celtics team.
Johnston has had a varied career at Celtic. He burst onto the scene in Brendan Rodgers‘ first tenure but injury hampered his progression in the side.
A loan spell at Vitoria Guimaraes brought Johnston back to life and it was his form in Portugal that earned him his first cap.
An injury picked up in pre-season set him back again but now he is fully fit and firing for his country, Kenny has said that Johnston needs game time to help improve him further.
Kenny said post-match after Ireland’s 4-0 win over Gibraltar [RTE], “Yeah, you know I love wingers. I absolutely adore wing play. That’s this fourth start but he needs to play matches. He’s too good not to be playing football.
“So it’s great that he did well himself and all of a sudden it looks like we have wingers who can make an impact.
“If Mikey can get game time, obviously with Mark Sykes coming on in that position as well. We just need better options in those areas and they can help provide it.”
Johnston certainly does have talent. You don’t break through from the Celtic Academy into the first team without it.
But staying injury-free is going to be so important for Johnston. Until he can do that and get some consistency under his belt, he will find it difficult to challenge the likes of Daizen Maeda, Luis Palma and even Hyunjun Yang.
I would love to see Johnston make it at Celtic, I really would. Fingers crossed he can deliver this season and offer Brendan Rodgers another option on the Celtic wing.
In other news, Celtic now want to sign £12m player who even Jude Bellingham struggles against