With the international week over and club football returning, the fallout of national football from the last two weeks will continue into today as players’ performances for their countries continue to be picked over.
For Celtic, the likes of Luis Palma and Liam Scales have done well over the last fortnight but so has 24-year-old winger, Mikey Johnston.
Johnston grabbed his second goal in his sixth appearance for The Republic of Ireland on Monday night. But as well as hitting the back of the net, the Irish media raved about his overall performance claiming that the Celtic winger ‘caused havoc‘ in the 4-0 win over Gibraltar.
However, if you really want a definitive summation of Johnston’s performance for the Irish, you need look no further than Ireland legend, Ray Houghton.
Commenting on Johnston’s performance, Houghton said [BBC], “Mikey Johnston still looks fresh, he’ll be happy enough with his performance this evening, he’s been absolutely terrific.
“He gets you on the edge of your seat, he’s an exciting player, he can handle the ball in tight areas and he’s not afraid to take a player on.”
And to be fair to Johnston, he did show flashes of his dribbling skills at various points in his early Celtic career.
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He has just been unfortunate that he has had to deal with injury after injury and just when it looked like he was coming back full of confidence after a spell in Portugal, the Scots-born Irish winger suffered yet another frustrating set-back with a preseason back injury.
However, it seems that he is now looking sharper and fresh and his next challenge will be how he breaks into the Celtic team ahead of the likes of Palma, James Forrest and Hyunjun Yang.
Blessed with pace and dribbling it shouldn’t be too hard for him now, should it?
In other news, ‘I’m happy where I’m at’: 25-year-old Celtic player insists he’s not looking to leave Parkhead