Youth coach Stevie Frail has revealed how a heart to heart with the players paid dividends against Motherwell on Monday night.
Last week’s 1-1 draw at home to Inverness Caley Thistle followed a 3-2 defeat at St Mirren before Christmas with the players failing to do themselves justice with patchy performances.
It looked ominous at Firhill on Monday night when Motherwell opened the scoring with an early penalty but a wonder goal from Paul George levelled the scores before half-time.
Rami Gershon and Anthony Stokes had departed by the time Patrik Twardzik and Bahrudin Atajic delivered the points that took Celtic above Dundee United at the top of the table.
Celtic have a substantial fixture backlog to negotiate over the coming weeks but following the clear the air talk last week Frail feels that the players are ready to do themselves justice.
“We had a long chat with them on Thursday about where they want to go individually as players and collectively as a team,” he explained.
“We had a disappointing result before Christmas against St Mirren and equally disappointing against Inverness last week. For this group to progress into the managers first team it’s not just about silky soccer, they need to dig in and grind out results and we didn’t do that last week.
“Against Inverness the first half was terrific but the second half was poor and we’ve did a lot of talking since that match. Tonight we dug in, we were dogged then started to play against Motherwell so we’re delighted with the win.
“The players have to be thinking of how they can progress into the first team plans, that’s always what this level is about. They need to dig in and get results, they need to do it more and show a real hunger to go and win games.
“At any level Celtic play at, from first team down people want to beat you, they don’t just let you play, it doesn’t work like that. Motherwell had an experienced team out there, I think all of them had first team experience, they’re not going to come and just let us play so we have to work hard.
“We need to work on the graft side of the game, I don’t think that we played particularly well for large chunks of the game but I’m really pleased with the result because of what we did when we didn’t have the ball.”
Bahrudin Atajic returned to the side and clinched the points with a fine solo goal four minutes from time.
With a new contract signed the Bosnian-Swede has the chance to really push his case for a first team place having trained with the first team on a number of occasions this season.
As I pointed out some of the highlights of his performance Frail stepped in with the eye of a critical coach.
“Exactly but that was in the second half,” he highlighted. “We needed more from him in the first half, if guys like him want to get into the first team we can’t have performances like the first half.
“He’s trained with the first team and has did really well, but you have to show that you’ll get in front of centre-backs, take a whack and get on with it.
“He got a penalty and was very unfortunate to be booked before it because from where we were that was a penalty as well. He scored a good goal from a terrific through ball from Patrik Twardzik.”
Paul George was also on the scoresheet with the Irish u-19 internationalist working his way back to peak powers after a horror leg break against Rangers last April.
On form George is virtually unplayable with his 30 yard diagonal strike a glimpse of the ability that took him to the verge of the Celtic first team.
“As soon as he hit it we could see it was going in the top corner,” Frail smiled. “The keeper was never getting it. Paul has been through a lot physically and mentally but is getting closer to where he was before his injury.
“The physical side and mental side are probably married in together. It was a horrific injury that he got and they are hard to get over. He scored a fantastic goal and that will help him a lot in his recovery.”
On Tuesday Celtic travel to Kilmarnock on u-20 league duty.
CLICK HERE Celtic 3-1 Motherwell match report
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Certainly a few players in that squad capable of making the first team and keeping a place in the years ahead. Cannot allow any opposition to simply outwork them if they want to succeed in the game.
Hope they can now focus clearly on the next game, sitting top of the league and games in hand took hard work…more to come to stay there. We are the team to beat EVERY week which means standards must continue to be set ever higher.
Great win and I’m sure many more to come, can’t let the first team enjoy all the glory…both sides going for more league titles.