Luis Palma has been told he must be “missing something” and that he should be fearful at Celtic as fellow Honduran former Hoops star Emilio Izaguirre told of the incredible lengths he went to at Parkhead.
The winger has struggled for game time this season and was criticised for his performance when given his chance in last weekend’s Premier Sports Cup victory over Falkirk. Palma joined Celtic for £3.5 million from Greek side Aris FC last summer.
And now Izaguirre, who spent eight years with the Scottish Premiership champions in two different spells, has questioned Palma’s efforts while telling him that only the toughest survive at Celtic having once scaled mountains during his time in Scotland to harden himself up for the challenge of fighting off competition for his left back spot.
The 38-year-old – capped 111 times for his country – told Futbol Centro America: “If you are a 200 per cent professional, you have to be 1,000 per cent. You have to learn to eat, sleep and train at 2,000 per cent because there you will find teammates who are more professional than you where you compete internally.
“Celtic are a very demanding team like their fans. If he’s not in the starting lineup, he’s missing something, they don’t leave anything out. Even in training there are cameras to see what everyone is doing.
“Something must be going on, and he should be worried because they do not spare anyone there. He is a great boy and player. Hopefully, this season, he will return to the starting lineup.
“You can’t get sick, get injured. When I got injured, they hired two left-backs. I trained and climbed a mountain to test myself, it’s a mental thing. I came back and took over the position. That’s the mentality that every athlete should have, you have to improve with hard work.”