Q: You mentioned going toe-to-toe with some of the big teams and how important the crowd are at the Celtic Park. How important has it been in this format to get those two additional games against quality of opposition in Europe to your own experience and your own development?
Alistair Johnston: “The difference between six and eight, it’s felt like a, they call it the league phase. And I’ll tell you what, it feels like a whole other league. It’s been an unbelievable amount of just top-quality matches that’s been added to the calendar. And again, now we’re going to have another two at minimum. So, you look at that like 10 Champions League matches at minimum, it’s an unbelievable accomplishment. And it’s one of the reasons why you signed for this club.
“It’s a massive, massive draw. Hopefully it’ll continue to be a draw, obviously for future players that want to come here and it helps keep guys, keep them in the building, keep their feet on the ground, that this is a great, great place to be and a great opportunity. Because you can come to a place like this, to maybe some of the bigger European minds it’s a smaller league, smaller country, but we can go out there and we’re going to be playing at the biggest stage, and you have a chance to get and reach the knockouts if you play your cards right. It’s been amazing. And hopefully we can continue that form on that we’ve had throughout this league phase and build on that confidence that we’ve had for ourselves into this knockout round. And yeah, Bayern Munich, it’ll be a pretty cool draw.”
Q: Celtic seem to be feeling a bit more comfortable, watching the side in the past couple of years, playing in Europe and playing the style of football that we do domestically and transferring that over. The game on Wednesday there seemed to be a bit more aggressive in Europe and yourself and the other full-backs pushing quite high, trying to win the ball up really, really high, taking the game to Villa. Was that something that Rodgers tried to instil in you, just that belief that press high and be aggressive?
Alistair Johnston: “I think that we’ve seen both sides of the coin. At Atalanta, we defended really well, compact, deep and I think you need to have that at this level. There’s going to be periods where you’re going to be pinned into your own box and you need to show that you can defend your box. I think we did that at a really high level there. And this match, it was a little different just because of how they set up. It almost was a bit more of a narrow 4-2-2-2 when you actually really look at it. And in that way, what you just don’t want to have happen is let their front two pin your whole back four. So, at that point then, it comes on to the full-backs to have to make decisions. And obviously, they know that and every single match is a little different. I think our coaches did a really good job with that.
“It’s like, look, you can’t just let Jacob Ramsey, for example, on my side, roll inside. No one goes in there, overload the midfield, get turned and then all of a sudden, you got Morgan Rogers, Ollie Watkins peeling off. You’re asking for it a little bit there. So, we have to be brave. We have to go up there and go toe-to-toe. But that really was more on a tactical basis. And I think that’s something that, again, we’ve shown a lot of growth in even since I’ve been here.”
“I know you alluded to previous years in this competition. But that ability and the confidence that we can defend in multiple different styles and still have a proper go. But yeah, no, it’s not easy. Look, we were leaving Auston, for example, 1v1 with Ollie Watkins, one of the best strikers in Europe, with half a pitch for Martinez to land it in. You’re asking a lot of every player. Again, I thought the guys stood up well to the challenge and that’s a really top team. They’re deserving of being one of the automatic qualifiers. I think that’s showing the growth of us, not only mentally but also tactically, that we can play different ways. And each match and each opposition is going to pose different threats. And it’s, okay, what can we do to mitigate that, but then also impose ourselves on them?”
Conor Spence
