Alistair Johnston, Gus Lagerbielke and Marco Tilio were among the team-mates commenting on Mikey Johnston’s Instagram following Celtic’s 3-1 win away to St Johnstone.
Starting this season as fifth or sixth choice winger, the 24-year-old came off the bench with Celtic trailing 1-0 to play a significant role in turning the match around.
Stretching the Saints defence down the right wing and prepared to run into the penalty box, Johnston offered a more direct option to Yang Hyun-Jun who he replaced at the break.
With Oh Hyeon-gyu providing a physical challenge there was more variety to Celtic’s attack after the break, it took until the 67th minute for Callum McGregor to equalise but by that stage St Johnstone were on the back foot.
Celtic’s play focussed on going down the right wing with Johnston pivotal to securing the points following the frustrations of last week’s 1-1 draw against Motherwell where he came off the bench to panic the visitors into conceding a penalty.
He has been there before but Johnston’s Celtic career is now at a critical stage, even more so with Liel Abada and Daizen Maeda close to returning from injury.
Options on the wing were absolutely critical to Ange Postecoglou’s success at Celtic, having two strong starters backed by two big options coming off the bench could go a long way towards opening things up for Rodgers’ side at a critical stage of the season.
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Discussing Johnston, Rodgers told the Daily Record:
The first thing I said to Mikey in the summer was ‘You’ve got to show that you’re fit’. He’s at the age where clearly he wants to play. But he was injured a lot, so he had to show that robustness. And he’s done that. He’s virtually been available and he’s trained really, really hard. He looks more robust in his body now.
The second thing I wanted to see was if he could tactically participate in the game. That’s the big challenge for Mikey because in a one vs one duel, he’s outstanding. He’s very, very good. He can beat a man, but football’s more than that. You have to be able to press the game, you have to be able to be synchronised with your team.
He’s shown that he can come into a game and make a great impact. I thought his impact yesterday was transformative for the team.
Hopefully now he can show at 24 because he’s not a young player anymore, I gave him his debut at 18, that he’s able to participate in the game and if he can do that, then he can have a really bright next decade.
