Nir Bitton has claimed that his Israeli teammates applauded him into their training camp.
The reason? Celtic’s treble treble success as word of the achievement has fair spread across the continent. The Hoops recorded a historic football first last Saturday when they beat Hearts 2-1 at Hampden. It’s the first time in British football history that a treble treble has been achieved. The dominance of the Parkhead side has been unheard of.
Bitton, however, has been a bit-part player throughout this season’s treble run. He’s managed just 10 outings after only returning from an 11-month injury layoff back in January. He’s struggled to earn his place back in the side, but has still managed to take his trophy haul at Parkhead up to 12.
And it appears that his international team were also impressed with the treble treble achievement too. Speaking in the Scottish Sun, Bitton touched on the welcome he received on international duty.
“The current manager, Andreas Herzog has been in contact with me for a long time. Even when I was injured at Celtic, he remained in touch. He sees me as a holding midfielder and that’s fine because I have played that position at Celtic too.
“When I arrived at the camp this week, he and the players applauded me because of the treble I had just won at Celtic, so that was a nice touch too!
“He gives me plenty of confidence and I want to reward him by helping to get six points against Latvia and Poland.”
A chance for Bitton to get minutes
Even if his future at Parkhead looks bleak, Bitton could do with getting some minutes under his belt during the international break.
Neil Lennon did give him some game-time in the closing matches of the campaign. Five of Bitton’s 10 appearances this season have come under Lennon. It remains to be seen if Lenny’s permanent appointment can reinvigorate Bitton, but there just appears to be too many names ahead of him at the moment to make that feel likely.
The international break should give the midfielder the game-time to keep fresh heading into pre-season on June 17th. It’s imperative that he has a good camp with Celtic in Austria and Switzerland this summer. Making sure he stays ahead of the likes of Eboue Kouassi and Youssouf Mulumbu in the pecking order is particularly vital.
But Celtic also have some real emerging youth talent that could threaten Bitton’s place too. The likes of Ewan Henderson has already broken through and can feature in his position. Then there’s the likes of Kerr McInroy who must also be on the cusp of a first-team call-up.
Celtic have reportedly been eyeing up David Turnbull in recent days too. If he comes in, that would be even more bad news for Bitton.
So there’s plenty for the Israeli to weight up this summer. His six years of service to the club deserves to be recognised, and hopefully, he can bow out positively next season.
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