Liam Scales delighted to be back at Lennoxtown

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Celtic F.C.

·4 de julio de 2024

Liam Scales delighted to be back at Lennoxtown

This time last year there was talk bandied about concerning Liam Scales being one of the players who were on their way out of the door at Celtic Park.

However, fast forward through the 2023/24 season and just 10 months later the Irish defender had played 45 games in being a key component of Celtic’s league and Scottish Cup Double-winning side.

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He also made his debut for the Republic of Ireland, the first of five caps over the course of the season, taking his game tally to a round 50 – and he signed a new deal with the club.

Understandably, the 25-year-old had a spring in his step on return to Lennoxtown as the Celts begin their preparation for the 2024/25 season with a game against Ayr United tomorrow night (Friday), one of FIVE pre-season games being shown exclusively LIVE on Celtic TV.

He said: “It’s been good, it’s been enjoyable to be back. I’ve been looking forward to getting back and getting back to work.

I’ve had a nice break, it’s been good. We’ve been working hard, obviously not everyone’s back because of the internationals and stuff like that, but it’s been tough, but good.

“I want to do better than last year, there’s always room for improvement, that’s the aim.

‘We’ve a lot to achieve this year. Obviously there’s the three domestic trophies, and the Champions League is a bit different.’

“We’re looking forward to that and getting the games in and picking up more results than we did, and seeing how far we can go in that tournament.

“So there is room for improvement definitely. It was a disappointing start to last season going out of the League Cup, and we want to go all the way in that.

"That’s the first trophy we can get our hands on and that’s what we’re looking at.”

The Irishman added: “With the manager coming in last season, he needed time to get his message across and get us working the way he wanted us to work.

“So now that he’s already had that, we won’t have to work on that as much this year and that’s going to benefit us. We can just go straight in, we know what we’re here to do and we want to do it.

“We finished the season strong and we’ve been carrying on from that. He just wants the same sort of intensity, the same attitude from everyone and that’s what we’re going to do.

“We get a good pre-season and go on tour with a few friendly games and we’ll all be fit and strong for the first week in August.”

The aforementioned new UEFA Champions League format will see the Celts compete in an eight-team league format made up of two teams from each of the four pots with games played either home or away and each team meeting only once.

Scales said: “Getting the two extra games and playing against a different team each time, it’s going to bring loads of different experiences, and just to have two extra games in the tournament guaranteed, is brilliant.

“Because that’s one of the things you look back on at the end and remember fondly. And it gives us more chances to win games, because we won the last one we played and that’s left us hungry to kick on and pick up points.

“But they are still going to be challenging games and we won’t really know until next year when we’ve played a year in it, but it’ll be interesting and I’m definitely looking forward to it.”

Celtic take on Ayr United at Somerset Park this Friday, July 5 (KO: 7.45pm), and you can watch the watch LIVE and EXCLUSIVE on Celtic TV.

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