Celtic’s pre-season may have officially begun last Monday, with the exciting arrivals of Jota and Alexandro Bernabei ending the week nicely, but the real work begins tomorrow when the squad and coaching staff fly out to Austria.
An afternoon flight will take the Bhoys to the Bad Erlach region of the country, about an hour’s drive outside of Vienna. It’s a more significant week of training for a few reasons.
First, Celtic’s full complement of players will return to the fold, even those who were on international duty well into June.
That means key players such as Callum McGregor, Kyogo Furuhashi and Josip Juranovic will all be added to the group, raising the standard and intensity of the work under Ange Postecoglou, John Kennedy, Harry Kewell, Gavin Strachan and the rest of the coaching team.
A schedule will also begin around matches with Celtic set to face SC Wiener Viktoria on Wednesday evening before a tougher test against Rapid Vienna next Saturday.
Aside from all this, who is and isn’t on the flight to Austria should tell us a fair bit about who is in the manager’s plans over the coming period.
Fringe players such as Christopher Jullien and Albian Ajeti are expected to travel despite uncertainty around their futures, while Boli Bolingoli is unlikely to be involved despite still being on the books.
Which youngsters make the trip will also be interesting with talents such as Rocco Vata, Bosun Lawal and Johnny Kenny all involved last week at Lennoxtown – amongst other B team players.
The initial matches in Austria will likely heavily revolve around the players who returned to training last week, giving the rest of the international group time to get up to speed after an extended holiday.
However, there could be an exciting non-competitive debut for Alexandro Bernabei, while Ben Siegrist is likely to get minutes too.
The matches will give supporters a glimpse of what is ahead and whether or not there are any tactical tweaks going into the new season.
Alongside all this, there is bound to be further transfer speculation with Celtic said to still be in the market for a defender, midfielder and attacker despite the deals already completed.
I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of a new name joining the group while they are in Austria or Czechia over the next ten days. We know Postecoglou wants people involved as quickly as possible.
With Celtic’s media team also on their travels capturing all of the action and no doubt providing other pre-season content, this week will feel like the first proper seven days of the 2022/23 season.
If nothing else, it’ll be fantastic to sit back, relax and watch 90 minutes of the team in action – that’s just days away now!
In other news, “What a reaction”; Inside Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou’s “remarkable” team talks.
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