David Turnbull sees no reason why he won't be in the Celtic team to stay after licking Lille

David Turnbull firmly believes he is on the way to being a permanent fixture of Neil Lennon’s side following his matchwinning display against Lille.

Celtic's David Turnbull celebrates his winner against Lille that he believes can cement his place in Neil Lennon's side. (Photo by Rob Casey / SNS Group)

The 21-year-old, in only his second Celtic start since his £3.5m move from Motherwell in the summer, provided the inspiration for Neil Lennon’s men to end their dismal five-game winless run with the clinching goal that capped a high-class showing. Now he is looking to back-it-up on Sunday against Kilmarnock, and has tipped the other fringe players who excelled in the Europa League closer, in Ismaila Soro, Ewan Henderson and goalkeeper Conor Hazard, to do likewise.

“I don’t see why not,” he said of ‘kicking on’ from his Lille performance. “I just need games under my belt. I showed against Lille what I can do, in scoring, getting an assist and help in other goal toget the club out of a sticky period, and I want to do that in more games. To a man, the lads were brilliant. Wee Soro is so good at breaking up play, Hendo is a threat going forward, and Hazie in goals did well. It was just a great night all round. It’s been tough, you don’t like being on the bench, but you just need to work hard every day in training and whenever you come on, try and do your best. Trust the process and what they are trying to do, bide your time and your chance will come.”

Turnbull did not consider the footballing Gods were conspiring against him once more when he contracted Covid-19 on duty with Scotland under-21s last month. The 21-year-old refused to see that in the context of losing the best part of a year of his career to a knee issue that showed up in his medical when he was set to move to Celtic in the summer of 2019. “It’s just one of those things, it didn’t really bother me that much,” he said. “I don’t try and think about things like that too much, I just take it in my stride. A lot of boys have had it, it’s just how you come back, luckily I wasn’t affected too bad. The way I have trained since I came back I didn’t feel I had really missed anything.”

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