Anthony Stokes tells Celtic he wants to stay

Anthony Stokes has told boss Ronny Deila that he wants to stay and fight for his place at Celtic.

Anthony Stokes has had a hard time breaking into the Celtic team this season. Picture: Gordon Fraser

The “humble” Hoops striker returned to training this week after a two-week suspension for indiscipline issues, including using social media to express his disgruntlement at being left out of the 18 after travelling with the Parkhead squad last month to Inverness for a Ladbrokes Premiership match.

Ahead of the visit of Motherwell on Saturday, Deila was asked if the 27-year-old Irishman had indicated his desire to get back into the team.

“Yes, of course he has and that is important,” said the Norwegian. “He loves Celtic and he wants to stay here but he also understands that he needs to improve certain things.

“I love Stokesy, I have nothing wrong to say about him. But this is a professional football club and we want to get the best out of everybody.

“Motherwell is going to be too quick. He has not trained for a couple of weeks so he needs time to show and again, this is to show over time, it is not about one week, it is about changing over time.

“We have had a talk with him, he is humble, an intelligent guy. He knows what I expect and the changes he needs to make to be part of the first team or the squad and we have to see through time if those changes are going to be made.

“He has apologised. I talked to him before so this is nothing new.

“We had to make a mark, we did it and now we move on.

“He has ability and when you have ability it is about getting the best out of it and that is my task. I will never give up.

“I believe that people will change. I believe that people want to get better and then I have to do everything I can to get out their potential.

“If we can get the best out of Stokesy everybody knows that we have a great player.”