Alistair Johnston insists he will fight hour by hour to be ready for Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup Final.
The Canadian had to go off at half-time during Celtic‘s clash with Dinamo Zagreb having suffered a hip issue following a crunching first-half tackle by home ace Sandro Kalenovic. Johnston is now racing to be ready for the Hampden crunch against Rangers. The right-back is adamant he’ll do everything in his power to be ready as he explained: “Of course I will.
“It’s a match that’s circled on the calendar, it’s a match I want to be a part of. It’s a chance to lift a trophy, a big match. So, yes, Sunday’s not far away, but at the same time there’s just enough of a break where I feel like, listen, we’ll see how it goes and hopefully I’ll be ready for it. It was just an awkward one. We’ll do some tests on it and, hopefully, it’s nothing too serious. We’ll see how the flight goes, take it day by day, hour by hour.
“It’s games like these everyone wants, to compete for trophies, Finals at Hampden. It’s where you want to be. It will be a great match and everyone’s excited for it. It’s the first trophy of the season and we’d love to add it to our collection and really end this calendar year on a high note.”
On the decision to come off, Johnston said: “It’s just a weird one and I was glad I could make it to half time. But I didn’t feel 100 per cent and Tony’s a very good player, so it made sense. I didn’t want to do any more damage potentially.
“We’re not really sure what’s going on with it, so we’ll just get home and have a look at it. We’ll see. Hopefully we’ll be back out on the training pitch and get ready to go for Sunday.”
Johnston could secure a sixth Celtic winners medal at Hampden and added: “There’s plenty of reasons for wanting to be ready, firing and fit for that Sunday one. I think we’re in good shape. We do feel good, we’re fit and we’ve been really strong domestically. This is the first opportunity to go and lift a trophy. It’s something all of the lads are ready to go for.”
Celtic go on the back of securing a ninth Champions League point and Johnston said: “Every point matters. All these grounds are difficult to go to. It wasn’t our best performance by any stretch of the imagination. But at the same time, we kept a clean sheet and limited them to just a few chances. It’s something to build on.
“Nine points after six games, I don’t think anybody would be looking back on that with too much regret. If you’d told the guys that at the beginning of the season we’d be on this tally by this stage, a lot of our fans and ourselves would be happy with that, but there’s still more points to be gained.”
Celtic were disappointed not to win and he added: “It’s a great sign. That’s a sign of how far we’ve come. There’s still levels to come. We know there’s the quality in this team to have gone out and found a winner.
“It wasn’t our night. The important thing when you’re struggling a little bit in the final third, you don’t give up anything defensively.”