Jota has dismissed claims that Celtic aren’t playing with the intensity that thrilled fans with their early season wins over Dundee, St Mirren and Hearts.
Fifteen goals in those three matches brought Celtic Park back to life with fans re-engaged after watching a season of misery on a club stream.
Kyogo Furuhashi was the focal point of Ange Postecoglou’s side with his goal-scoring exploits drawing comparisons to Henrik Larsson and Gary Hooper.
Without the Japanese striker and captain Callum McGregor results have hit a downturn with Dundee United leaving Celtic Park with a point on Sunday.
Jota only joined Celtic on loan at the end of August but told the Daily Record that there has been no fall in the levels that Postecoglou’s side are playing at:
You think we don’t have intensity of a few weeks back? Then you have to look at the data! The data doesn’t tell you that so I’m not sure if that’s correct but I respect the opinion. But I have to disagree. I don’t think our intensity is less than the previous weeks.
We are doing quite well in terms of intensity. The only thing is that we need to score the chances we have and keep on working because things will for sure be good for us in the future.
I’m very good friends of the woodwork! On another day we could have won Sunday’s game comfortably. Unfortunately we didn’t get the win. We hit the crossbar three times which is a record this season for sure.
But the process is there. The ideas are there. The intensity to win the game is there. As I’ve said, this is a long process. We just have to believe in our ideas and keep on working. Things will be good in the future.
Modern day players like Jota will use data as a tool to keep tabs on their own performances with every detail of 90 minutes available in one form or another.
With no-one returning from injury Postecoglou faces a massive task tomorrow night when his ideas and philosophy are put to the test by Bayer Leverkusen.