Entertainer is having a ball at the Hawthorns
WEST BROM WINGER
MIKEY Johnston is the best player in the Championship on current form, at least if his West Brom team-mate Jed Wallace is to be believed.
“Mikey’s on fire at the moment,” said the former Millwall man. “The way he’s playing, I don’t see anybody better.”
Six goals, one assist and several man-of-the-match performances bolster Wallace’s assessment, and beg an obvious question: why did Celtic permit such an extravagantly talented winger to join the Baggies on loan in January?
It’s a question that Hoops boss Brendan Rodgers has fielded several times in recent weeks, and the answer is relatively simple.
Johnston’s seven years in the Celtic first team have been devastated by injury. Some big. Some small. All disruptive.
“You have to really understand football ball to understand what he’s been through because they’ree not your average juries,” explained
former England goalkeeper Joe Hart, a teammate at Celtic Park. in“People understand when you pull your hamstring and you’re out for eight weeks but you come back and you’re fine. Or if you break a leg. But Mikey had these little injuries that kept holding him back and stopped any sort of momentum and flow in his reer.” caJohnston actually made his debut for Celtic way back in May 2017 but has since started just 20 league games for his boyhood club. Supporters have all but written him off.
The 24-year-old did feature regularly on loan at Portuguese side Vitoria Guimaraes last season and also won the first of eight caps for the Republic of Ireland, only to suffer a back problem upon his return to Scotland that required yet another threemonth absence.
“The talent has always been there,” said Rodgers. “Everybody knows that. What he needs is a run of games.”
With Celtic chasing the title and an abundance of wingers blocking his path, that wasn’t going to happen in Glasgow.
Johnston expressed a desire to leave, Rodgers saw little reason to object, and West Brom were the beneficiaries.
Hart describes Johnston as a “throwback winger” who lives to entertain and feeds off the love of an appreciative crowd.
“Mikey is a confidence player,” said the 36-year-old. “There’s no secret about that. But if he’s happy and fit, he’s a special player. He has a lot of ability and the kind of qualities that can lift people off their seats.”
And lift them, he has. Playing off the left in Corberan’s 4-2
