Celtic star makes Turnbull-Soro plea to Neil Lennon

Celtic fans were encouraged by the win over Lille and the performances of David Turnbull and Ismaila Soro. Now one of the stars in the team has spoken about wanting to see more of the pair.

It was perhaps an unexpected win for Celtic on Thursday, given all that had gone down before. But in addition to the win the real encouragement came from a great performance from the team, possibly due to some changes in the line up.

Fans had been asking for changes to the team for quite some time and the players brought in made a difference. Conor Hazard in goal and Patryk Klimala leading up front had good games and did very well, as did Ewan Henderson when he came on for Jeremie Frimpong.

But the spotlight was stolen deservedly by David Turnbull and Ismaila Soro. Both had impressive performances which have been much discussed since by the supporters and the media. Now we see the vice captain Callum McGregor praising the pair, their impact on the team and wanting to see more of them.

As the Glasgow Times reports, McGregor welcomes the extra competition for places in the team. He reckons it’s what’s needed at Celtic and will raise standards and performances. So he is keen to see more of Turnbull and Soro in addition to others. That should make things interesting across the midfield when it comes to selection for McGregor himself, Scott Brown, Ryan Christie, Olivier Ntcham and Tom Rogic in particular:

"“That is what we need – boys to come in and really keep pushing the standard.“Competition for places really drives the standard. It helps everyone raise their game. We need as many people as we can on the pitch and playing well. It is better for Celtic.“David was excellent. Right throughout the game, he picked the right pass. He knew when to dribble and when to pass. Then obviously he got his goal. It was a great finish as well.“There is no reason why he can’t get a bit of confidence from the goal and the performance and really kick on. Hopefully we can keep pushing him, keep getting him in the team and he can keep delivering for us. That is exactly what we need at this point.“Soro was excellent too. He’s a real talent. You saw the amount of times he won the ball back. He’s incredible. That is his game. He wins the ball and plays simple. He looks a top player. He’s been unlucky, but you need to keep working every day and his time will come. Hopefully he starts to get a run because we need everyone playing well.”"

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McGregor also reflected on the importance of the win to end the recent run of poor results and disappointing performances. He certainly hasn’t given up on the season and sees a positive way forward:

"“It is part of football.“I have been here a long time. It is a challenge we have to accept. You have to try and stay calm. We can’t get caught up in it.“We are professional footballers, we want to win, of course we do, everyone in the building wants to win. We have to do everything we can in every game to keep improving and come out the other end of this as a better team.“Hopefully we can use Thursday night as a catalyst to go forward. The most important thing is we have experienced it, we stay humble and we keep building from here. We have to put these performances together now and go on a run.”"

It ain’t over until it’s over, but it will be a hard task to recover. Whether we see Soro, Turnbull and others stepping in and holding down places or just greater rotation and use of the squad remains to be seen.

The extra competition for places and the additional variety newer players can bring will definitely help. The next step in how this will play out comes in seeing the team selection for Sunday, a home Premiership match against Kilmarnock. It would be a mistake for sure to revert to the usual line up again.