Greg Taylor tells all as Brendan Rodgers’ side get back down to business for two massive Premiership games.
Greg Taylor revealed there was no time for charades in the Celtic team hotel on Christmas night.
The only festive party games the Hoops squad are interesting in this week are the ones that come with three points. Brendan Rodgers allowed his men to have Christmas Eve off and then the morning with the families. But it was back to business on Christmas afternoon for today’s Boxing Day dust-up with Dundee.
Taylor had no complaints putting the Yuletide shenanigans to one side as he knows this part of the season is strictly business. He said: “We were in a hotel. There was no charades or anything like that! You train a bit later on Christmas Day so you get the morning with your families and enjoy that with them, because they have a lot of sacrifice throughout the season. You’re away in a lot of hotels, and can be away at three games a week.
“So, as much as we are in such a privileged position as footballers, and I would never take it for granted because it’s an amazing honour to play at this club and play professional football as your living, but it is one of the days you try to give back to them because there is a lot of sacrifice for them.
“I celebrated it on Christmas Eve because we were off. We’ll had the family up and enjoyed it with them. Pretty standard, prawn cocktail, soup, turkey, ham … certainly no wine for me though, I left that for other people!”
“Then we trained on Christmas Day to be ready to prep for Dundee. It’s been a lot of games and we want to finish it with strong performances and positive results. That starts on Boxing Day against Dundee.”
No charades but Celtic look like themselves again on Saturday against Livingston and Parkhead sounded more like itself once more too. The performance was more like it on the back of consecutive league defeats to Killie and Hearts, while the Green Brigade being back in the ground gave the place a more familiar rowdy feel.
Celtic took until the second period to make a breakthrough but it was a comfortable 2-0 win and Taylor admitted it was much more like it after a few weeks of impersonating the champions. He said: “I would say so, it was very dominant. I don’t remember Livingston really getting into our box. We could have made it a bit easier if we took one of the chances in the first half but we continued the tempo in the second half and got the result we needed.
“It was a hard week. We got a bit of criticism and rightly so, the last league performances weren’t good enough. We knew we had to perform and for the most part we did that. The fans were good. It was good having a full packed-out stadium. That helped us.
“Of course they were a bit frustrated when we didn’t get the goal in the first half but that’s natural. It’s our job to stay calm. We want to win the game in the first half but that can’t always happen. You know at Celtic that one defeat is a disaster, never mind two. It really wasn’t good enough, albeit the Champions League in the middle was a stronger performance. The two league games weren’t up to our level and it was about trying to find that quickly. There was a lot of forward running, good power, getting into the right areas.”
There was a noticeable different in the Celtic approach at the weekend. It was faster and more incisive – and the approach helped Kyogo return to the score sheet after drawing blanks for seven games. It’s all about the service for the striker and he finally had something to get his teeth into.
Taylor said: “He did well for his goal, getting in at the back stick. He could have had a couple in the first half. It’s been hard for Kyogo, it’s been hard for us all this week. He’s probably not had the same amount of chances as he wanted so it’s about getting in the right areas to get him there. It was about trying to make those runs. It’s difficult against a deep, low block, back five, there’s not a lot of space.
“Sometimes you’ve got to make those unselfish runs into an area that you’re never going to get the ball, but it’s hoping to drag another body with you and open it up for someone else. There were a lot of them against Livi, but it was just nice to get the performance and the result we wanted.”
Taylor is hoping Celtic are over their rocky spell – and they could be further boosted with the return of huge players this week. Rodgers revealed Reo Hatate and Liel Abada are close to coming back and it won’t need a guessing game to suggest what that means to the Hoops squad.
Taylor said: “Yeah, these are players that we’ve missed, definitely. Reo gives us a real dynamism in the midfield, he’s go that ability to go past a player in midfield.
“Liel speaks for himself. He’s got so many goals at the back stick, he’s always there making good forward runs. So, yeah, that will strengthen the squad and give us a few more options. Will we be stronger? I hope so. I think notoriously we have been pretty strong after the break and had a real consistent run of results.
“Having the boys back – and I’m sure there will be additions in to drive the competition up and give the boys that are out there a helping hand – we’re looking forward to the boys coming back and the opportunity that brings.”
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