Celtic youngster prepares for ‘long season’ after first start in three years vs Queen’s Park

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The great thing about watching Celtic’s last two friendlies against Ayr United and Queen’s Park was the number of youth players that Brendan Rodgers has given opportunities to this summer.

We have already discussed this morning how the Celtic fans had their say on Bosun Lawal after the youngster’s impressive versatile outing against The Spiders last night.

The 21-year-old started the pre-season fixture in midfield before dropping into the centre of defence for the second half of Celtic’s 6-4 win.

We also got to see young Francis Turley score in his first start for Celtic and leave Brendan Rodgers mightily impressed.

But there was another highly-rated Celtic starlet who started last night’s friendly and it seems he has his eye on a ‘long season’ at the club.

Dane Murray enjoyed being ‘tested’ vs Queens Park

Dane Murray returned to the Celtic fold against Scott Brown’s Ayr United last week after appearing as a second-half substitute.

And after getting his first start in three years last night, the young Celtic defender is looking forward to more first-team action in the coming season.

Murray said [Celtic TV], “It was good to get minutes in the legs again. In the first half, we did well but I think we came out in the second half and in the first fifteen minutes we showed what we can do.

“These are the games where in pre-season you want to be tested and they came out and playing against Celtic, they will want to impose themselves on the game and I thought we did well.

“It’s going to be a long season so we’re starting off on the right foot.”

Murray has just recovered from a horrendous run of injuries that have kept him out of the game for the last two seasons.

After undergoing surgery last summer, the Scotland U19 international has now fully recovered and has also signed a new two-year deal at the club.

Remarkably, Murray’s last outing in the Celtic first-team was in a Champions League qualifier against FC Midtjylland in July 2021 where Ange Postecoglou’s team crashed out after a 2-1 extra-time defeat against the Danes.

Now back in the first-team fold, Murray, and the Celtic fans, will be hoping to see more of the highly-rated youngster as he looks to kick on this season under Brendan Rodgers.