ONE SMALL STEP…

Stephen Welsh was delighted to make his Celtic debut last season, and the defender is aiming to push ahead in this campaign

- TONY CONNELLY

THE entire Celtic team were disappointed by the abrupt end to last season, none more so than Stephen Welsh who had made his first-team debut in February and was hoping for more playing time during the remainder of the campaign.

That breakthrough came on February 2 in Celtic’s 4-1 away win over Hamilton Accies, and the central defender impressed in his first outing. Now, having enjoyed pre-season with Neil Lennon’s first-team squad, the 20-year-old is looking forward to the competitive football starting and is ready to play his part as and when required.

Speaking exclusively to the Celtic View, Welsh said: “This has been my third pre-season away and it’s been another valuable learning experience for me. It’s always good to go away every year.

“The last two years the team have gone away to Austria and the time we had away this summer has helped get a bit of normality back into the routine. Spending a couple of weeks focusing on training and football gets you in the right frame of mind for the start of the season.

“Overall it’s been a good few weeks. It was strange at first coming in and training in different groups but things moved on, and once we found out about going away to England and then France, it made everyone more excited.

“The week of training in Loughborough was tough but the results were good. We had to get the fitness up for the games in France and we felt good during those games, so it was a productive week.”

The restrictions around travel reshaped Celtic’s initial pre-season plans and Welsh admitted this summer has taken on a different feel to the other pre-season camps he’s been involved in.