“Jota, believe me it’s a different feeling in the European nights,” that’s what one of his teammates told the on-loan Benfica winger who can’t wait to play under the lights at Celtic Park against Bayern Leverkusen in the Europa League on Thursday.
Jota is as skilful in dealing with the hacks as he is going past defenders as he makes sure that they get next to nothing from him by way of a negative headline about disarray, lack of confidence in the camp, conceding titles in September, angst over the drop points, using the injury crisis as an excuse for another defeat.
Jota told them to talk about the title in May and explained the the pressure at Celtic is no different from what he’s used to at Benfica as both clubs are expected to win every game they play. The Portuguese wing certainly is not feeling sorry for himself about the lack of players available to play Leverkusen and he simply states that the players who are fit have the task of winning the match and that is what they intend to do. “We’re looking forward to a great game and we can’t wait,” the Celtic star said.
On conceding the league Jota had this to say to the hacks: “It is a non-question for us because we don’t think like that, we are still in September last time I checked. There are no champions in September.
“We just have to play game by game and develop each game and learn from the things we do wrong and be a better team. The championship will end in May and then we can speak about that but for now there is plenty of the championship to play.
“As professional players and with the experience we have had in the last few years, we learn with every situation. The solution is always to look forward, look to errors we made in previous matches and just keep on fighting.
“Of course there are some results that didn’t go quite well but we know the quality is there, the ideas are there and in other games we did very well so we have to recover physically and mentally, and be ready for the next game.”
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