Celtic’s Moritz Jenz reveals warning over off-field goal celebrations

A celebratory day for Celtic’s Moritz Jenz could have easily turned into a sorry one after glee gazumped reason for the centre-back on his goalscoring debut last week.

Celtic's Moritz Jenz takes off towards the club's supporters after scoring on his debut in an act that brought red-card jeopardy which the German centre-back says won't be repeated. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)

Now the loanee from Lorient confesses he has it laid on the line to him that there can be no repeats of the red card risk to which he left himself open ran when launching into the away support after he headed in to restore Celtic’s lead in their 3-1 defeat away to Ross County. Racing off the field in such circumstances often earns a yellow card but the 23-year-old was fortunate that one did not materialise considering he had earlier been booked. The German maintains a lesson has been learned.

“I have been warned to take care,” Mortiz said. “Last week was pure joy, pure emotion when I ran into the crowd. Next time, if I have the chance to score the goal I will be more settled. If I’m honest I didn’t think about the consequences because it was pure joy. It was my first game and I had the adrenaline to play in front of our supporters. When the goal happened in front of them I think anyone would have the same feeling of wanting to jump straight into the crowd to celebrate with our fans. It’s just normal instinct.”

Jenz’s first experience of a Scottish game he said was all-new to him owing to its physicality and tempo will segue into another unfamiliar experience when Celtic tackle Kilmarnock’s unloved plastic pitch. “We have prepared on plastic [but] it’s obviously a different surface, more sticky and difficult,” the Fulhm academy product said.”But we have to get used to it and make sure we play our game on Sunday. Obviously we don’t play on these surfaces every week so it is quite unusual for the team. It’s not the same as grass where the ball runs smoother when it’s wet. It’s more bobbly because of the granules on the field. At the end of the day we need to be focused, be clean in our actions and then we have a good chance.”

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