Josip Juranovic has provided an insight into the dressing room mentality at Celtic as he stated the players don’t feel as if they’re fighting each other for minutes.
The Croatian international has been the club’s first-choice right-back this season after displacing Anthony Ralston in 2022. However, despite that, Ange has shown his tendency to rotate and give players opportunities – Ralston included.
Celtic have competition for places all over the pitch these days. But even so, Juranovic doesn’t view it as a battle with his teammates. Instead, they feel as though they’re fighting the opposition.
He’s been speaking about his own personal duel with Ralston. However, as quoted by the Daily Record, the narrative of competing with team-mates isn’t something that interests Josip:
“There is competition for places but we don’t see it like we are fighting each other. We have friendships and we will give everything for each other on the pitch. It doesn’t matter if I am on the bench and Anthony Ralston is playing, we know we have that quality player playing instead.
“That’s what happens at a big club like Celtic. We know we need to continue this now. We have a lot of players in the squad and you only have to look at the bench against St Johnstone. We have boys who can come on and make the difference for us. There is such strength and depth in the team.
“Even in training every day, the boys have to be at their best as we are fighting to get a place in the team. Because of that it helps the team reach high standards.”
Celtic players not battling each other but the opposition instead
This is exactly the kind of narrative we want to hear from the Celtic players. Not that they’re battling each other but instead focusing on the common goal of taking down our rivals.
This is something that’s already been spoken about by other Celtic stars this season. Anthony Ralston said similar about his own situation with Josip for example [The National]. There’s clear unity there and an understanding that they’ll all get their chance to impress when the time comes.
After all, if there was a different narrative being pushed here then it could lead to player satisfaction. Celtic supporters don’t really want to hear about the players being in competition mode with each other. We would much rather hear them talk up the unity and their understanding of potentially being benched.
Celtic likely wouldn’t be where they are in the Premiership without that kind of mindset. If there was dissatisfaction in the ranks then it would’ve shown by now. We would never have gone unbeaten domestically since September anyway, that’s for sure.
Celtic supporters know what the club’s strongest XI is by now. The players will know it too. But when Ange needs to make changes there have been no grumblings of discontent this season. No complaints about specific player roles.
If that doesn’t show full-on commitment to the Ange cause then what does?
In other news, Kemar Roofe already being overhyped again despite being bossed twice by Celtic
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