Yahoo Sports Stand-in skipper uses head to settle the Celts
Celtic skipper Callum McGregor has certainly been among the goals in this first quarter of the season with four strikes, each as sweet as the other, notched on the goalpost so far.
And no sooner than the captain having to sit out the trip to Fir Park this weekend, Alistair Johnston pulled on the armband as stand-in skipper and also took up the mantle of goal-scorer as well.
The Canadian defender netted a classic diving header from an Alex Valle cross to put the Hoops 2-0 ahead and in command of what eventually became a 3-0 win.
He said after the game: “I enjoyed it for sure. I don’t often make my way into the opposition’s box. But that time I kind of just saw a little bit of space and darted in there,
“And Alex picked me out with a great ball, and again, I feel that that half-space ball is on all the time for us.
“I remember Greg’s put in a couple, Matt O’Riley comes to mind, and Adam Idah as well, so it just felt that at this ground, that’s place that you want to attack.
“Again, a great ball there, I managed to finish it and happy days again. I think it was a harder one to miss than score, so I’m just glad it went in.
And he added on being handed the captain’s armband: “The big thing was I didn’t want to be the one captain who had a losing record for my one appearance as captain,
“Cal picked up something at the last minute there, big CCV was still out, Greg as well, so I kind of realised that it might be me wearing it.
‘I just had to think about my pre-game speech for the Huddle – the lads were good with me there, there wasn’t too much pressure on me.’
“So, again, I just wanted to lead by example on the pitch. I’m naturally a pretty big talker but it didn’t put any extra pressure on me.
“I just wanted to play well, perform well for the team, and, again most importantly, go out there and get three points, because it’s not an easy place to come to as we’ve seen over the past couple of years.
“We normally leave it pretty late here. So it was nice to wrap that one up a little bit earlier.”
On the final whistle, thoughts then turned to midweek and Wednesday night’s game against Dundee at Celtic Park.
Johnston said of the packed schedule: “It’s definitely difficult, but that’s why you build a squad like we have. We’ve got quality littered throughout the squad, you saw that today.
“Bringing guys like Luke, you can just see the quality that he has, right from the get-go and it was a lovely individual effort to get that first goal and get us going.
‘So the really important thing is that no matter how hectic the schedule gets, we’ve built a squad that has the depth and the quality to be able to manage that.’
“And not every team in this country can say that, so it’s something we really need to use to our advantage.
“I think we’ve shown that today and I think we’ll continue to show it throughout these next couple of weeks because it is really busy.
“There’s match after big match, especially with how tight it is at the top right now, we know we can’t really drop points.
“Any league match – it’s not a league match, it’s a Champions League game, and we know how important they are – so we’re just taking it day by day, step by step and believing that anyone that comes in and plays a part is going to do their job, and we’ve seen that today.”
Fixtures
Motherwell Vs. Celtic - Sun, Oct 27th 2024, 15:00 Final score: 0 - 3 Match Report
