Liel Abada praised his Celtic teammate James Forrest after the veteran winger reached the incredible achievement on Saturday, scoring a hat-trick against Hibs to reach the 100 goals mark for Celtic over a long, honours-laden career in the Hoops that is incidentally far from over.
The Celtic Star used our question to the manager ahead of the match against RB Leipzig to remind Ange that James Forrest had the Champions League expereince his side had lost through the injury to Callum McGregor and also that Jamesy looked likely when he came off the bench at McDiarmid Park in the win over St Johnstone.
Ange started with Abada on the right wing against the Bundesliga side but a first half injury meant that Jamesy got his chance and he certainly didn’t let anyone down, setting himself a start at the weekend where he certainly made the most of it.
And fans of Sandman on here – and there are many thousands of them – will know that his Definitive Ratings are always just that little bit better when Jamesy in the team.
“Jamesy is a really good friend and he has been able to teach me so much,” Abada said as reported by Scottish Sun. “He has been at the club for a long time, has played a lot of games and scored a lot of goals.
“I can learn so much from him and I was so happy to see him score a hat-trick.
“I speak with him all the time and he gives me a lot of advice. Everyone in the team is good friends and are really together. All the older players like Jamesy are amazing in helping the younger ones as well as the new players.
“What I admire most about him is his movement and his technique. I’m happy to have him as a team-mate and hopefully he can keep scoring for us.
“He has a great mentality. You have to keep working at it every day and in every game. This is the most important thing.”
Abada also spoke about the importance of the substitutes coming off the bench and contributing to the performance especially when they can score a goal or two. It’s something that has become a feature of Celtic under Ange Postecoglou who certainly makes the most of the increase in the number of substitutions that are avaiable.
“We have a good squad full of talented players. Every player can be in the line-up. One game I score, one game Jamesy will score, one game Daizen will score and Giakoumakis, Kyogo, and Haksa. This is really good because that is our job,” Abada said.
It’s likely he’ll get the chance to do just that at Fir Park in Wednesday in the early evening kick-off in the League Cup, as surely Jamesy has done more than enough to keep the jersey.
