Celtic midfielder David Turnbull believes his injury woes are firmly over as he sets his sights on next season.
Turnbull picked up a hamstring injury during the Premier Sports Cup final against Hibernian back in December. The blow kept him out for 3 months with David ending the season with a goal on trophy day against Motherwell.
Overall, that meant he managed to secure 42 games in the entire campaign [Transfermarkt]. As many as 34 came in the first half of the season too as Ange Postecoglou relied heavily upon the midfielder to be his creative spark.
And now he’s targeting even more next season as he looks to be a mainstay in the Celtic midfield. As quoted by the Daily Record, Turnbull said: “I think I’d played 40 or 50 games in a row (before the injury). So if I do that every season, it would be brilliant. I didn’t want an injury but I don’t feel it held me back much and I don’t feel it will affect me next season either. I’m looking forward to playing as many games as I can again. It felt brilliant to lift the league trophy.
“The manager has been great with me. He’s given me and the other boys so much belief. He puts his style across and it suits the players. There’s a lot of midfielders and other players fighting for every position here and that’s good for the team. There are boys wanting to make their way into the team and that brings the standards up every day.
“All the lads went through the season really believing in themselves. And the way we clinched it just topped it all off. It was great to get a goal on the last day.”
David Turnbull has a huge role to play at Celtic under Ange next season
There’s no denying that competition for places has bolstered massively over the course of Turnbull’s injury absence. Matt O’Riley, Reo Hatate, and Yosuke Ideguchi all arrived in January when David was still nursing his knock.
The former 2 have featured regularly in 2022. However, it’s been clear throughout the season just how high Ange has rated Turnbull. Even after his injury return and in the middle of a tense title race, he was still given plenty of minutes to build himself up.
Turnbull won’t lose his spot, but it’s going to be a big effort from him to rack up as many appearances next term. At least in terms of starts.
Not that this is a bad thing of course. It’s imperative that Ange is able to call on a host of different options next term in order to keep players fresh. Arguably, it was the number of games Turnbull played in during the first half of the season that led to his injury woes.
He undoubtedly has a huge role to play next season and will be one of the first names that come to mind under Ange. But so too will O’Riley and Hatate. That’s the nature of squad evolution – having options.
It will be exciting to see how it all plays out. But make no mistake, having Turnbull back at 100% will be huge for our ambitions.
In other news, 2021 Celtic target Thomas Henry suffers relegation after rejecting Hoops move
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
