OLIVIER NTCHAM in his first season in Scottish football has stood up well to the challenge of playing in a more physical league than he’d experienced elsewhere. The 22 year old French midfielder was eased into the Celtic starting eleven in the early part of the season and oozed class right from the off. But he’d drop out of the side and onto the bench as Brendan Rodgers made sure that the player wasn’t being asked to do too much after his summer move from Manchester City.
Ahead of tomorrow’s Scottish Cup Final – against perhaps the most physical side in the Premiership, Motherwell – Ntcham revealed that he’s been taking additional measures to ensure that he has been able to stand up to the battles in the middle of the park in Scottish football.
“I am training more because I have a second coach from Paris called Reda Bekhti, who comes over to help me and that has helped me to adapt to the Scottish game,” Olivier said.
“In Italy, I was only playing one game a week but here we were playing three games. It was a big change for me and the club were supportive of me bringing him in.
“He comes over to Glasgow two or three times a month to work with me. He works with me on my position and my use of the ball in games as well as my game understanding. I have known him since I was only 13 as he was my coach back in Paris, so I trust him to be able to help me.
“We have kept in touch over the years and he is always there to help me. He gives me a lot of confidence. He watches all my matches and he tries to pass on advice. He can see what aspects of my game I have to improve on.”
Ntcham of course is helped by playing alongside Celtic’s legendary warrior Scott Brown. And he knows that he has the full confidence of his manager Brendan Rodgers to fulfil that role in the team.
“It is very nice for me, he shows me the confidence. And on the pitch I need to give him the right response back. I am a lot different as a player from when I came here at first. I was fit but not like today,” Ntcham stated.
“At the beginning of the season when I couldn’t play three games in a row it was maybe two, rest one, another two again. The manager said that to me, you are not going to play every game this season because you have to be careful with yourself. If I had played every game and got injured that would have been bad for me.”
While it would have been easy to get frustrated at dropping out of the team after playing very well, Ntcham understands why Rodgers took those decisions.
“I understand it was for me. I think when you come here, I had been everywhere, Italy, France, England. Here is like England, just about the commitment, the way you play, everyone can understand whether you are a lazy player, it is just about your commitment. But it is true you can never get to the top until you can play every time. If you want to perform you have to play a lot of games and you have to know your own body.”
Looking forward to tomorrow’s return trip to Hampden – he scored the second penalty in the semi final win over Rangers – Ntcham realises that Mothwerwell will battle all the way.
“It will be a tough game for us because Motherwell always give us a difficult game. They fight for every single ball, they run their socks off and we know how tough this will be.
“I enjoy the physical battle in games, so I always love the matches we have with Motherwell. It is a good test for players and one we thrive on. Teams like Hearts and Motherwell are physical but we are strong enough to cope with that and we have shown that throughout the season.”
LAST NIGHT The Celtic Star Podcast – A Celtic State of Mind won prestigious The Podcast of the Year Award at the Football Blog Awards in London.
The latest podcast is out this morning – it’s part 2 of the brilliant interview with Celtic’s SLO John Paul Taylor where he selects the games and the soundtracks of his own personal Celtic journey. Loved his memories of the 4-2 game in the first part of his interview. Here’s the latest instalment from the UK’s Football podcast of the year…
Listen to “John Paul Taylor with A Celtic State of Mind (Part 2/3)” on Spreaker.
