Julian Araujo is Celtic’s only winter signing not brought in by Martin O’Neill.
He was signed by Wilfried Nancy and Paul Tisdale, less than a week before the pair were sacked after a disastrous eight games at the club.
Despite this, Araujo has emerged as a reliable contributor under O’Neill, deputising for the injured Alistair Johston.
As a result, he was one of the three new additions chosen by O’Neill to be part of Celtic’s Europa League squad for their upcoming tie against Stuttgart and potentially beyond.
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Julian Araujo on Celtic boss Martin O’Neill
Araujo was named man of the match in Celtic’s 2-0 win over Falkirk before playing all 120 minutes of Saturday’s win over Dundee.
A Mexico international, he has his eye on a spot in their squad for a home World Cup this summer.
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And with how things are going for him under the Hoops icon, Araujo is giving himself the best possible chance.
He said on the Celtic FC Podcast: “Yeah, I think I’m enjoying it a lot. You can see that I am, I think.
“They’re letting me play freely, I think. They’re not really giving me much in my head to do. They’re not giving me a lot of specifics.
“I think they’re just keeping it really simple for me. They know my capabilities. They know what I’m doing.
“I think Martin O’Neill is just very… honest. He knows what he wants, he knows what he’s going to tell you. He’ll tell you if you play bad, he’ll tell you if you play well. He’ll tell you what he doesn’t want you to do!
“But it’s been really good. I’ve been enjoying it, definitely. I think you can see that the squad is also enjoying it.
“Our performances have been good, whether we haven’t played well, I feel like we still know what we can give.
“You know, after the last game (against Dundee), we knew it was going to be tough, but we grinded it out and we did whatever we could.
“But yeah, I’m enjoying it – not just Martin and Shaun… Fozzy, Mick, everybody involved in his staff has been very good.
“So credit to them. Also, all the analysts, they’ve also helped me. I’m a guy that likes to learn and look at film a lot.”
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The interesting career of Celtic’s Julian Araujo
Despite only being aged 24, it’s fair to say that Araujo has had an eventful career so far.
He made over 100 appearances for LA Galaxy, mostly as a teenager, earning a dream move to Barcelona which almost fell through when the transfer was signed off 14 seconds after the deadline.
The Catalan giants lodged a successful appeal, but Araujo never made a competitive appearance for the club, spending time on loan at Las Palmas in the 2023-24 season.
This led Bournemouth to sign him for €10million, and after a patchy first season, he fell out of favour during this campaign, leading to his loan to Glasgow.
Born and raised in the United States, he represented the USA at five different age levels before appearing in a friendly in 2020. However, he made the decision to switch to Mexico a year later, earning 16 caps since.
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