Mikey Johnston insists he will give it his all to try and force his way into Brendan Rodgers' plans at Celtic.
The Republic of Ireland international has struggled with injuries of late and last season he was sent out for a loan period in Portugal when Ange Postecoglou was in charge.
Rodgers has since returned as manager and he played a big role in Johnston bursting onto the scene as a youngster. Since then it has not gone to plan for the 24-year-old and he knows he is now at a crossroads in his career.
He told the Daily Record: “It’s not happened yet. Hopefully it does. A big dream of mine would have been to play in the Champions League for Celtic.
“It’s sort of what I wanted to do as a boy so hopefully it happens but if it doesn’t it’s not the end of the world. No player is going to be happy when they're not playing. Ultimately it's up to me and I need to try and force my way into that team. I have until January to do that and I will try and give it everything to do that but we just have to see what happens.
“I’ve not spoken to the manager much in the last sort of month, we've had chats here and there. It's tough decisions for the manager to make and ultimately it's up to me.”
Johnston hopes appearances for Ireland at international level will help as he aims to cement a starting spot for his club.
Daizen Maeda and Liel Abada are currently out injured, which could pave the way for Johnston to make an impact.
He continued: “I want to be involved in Ireland camps. I want to be playing for Ireland. Realistically, if I'm not playing I won't be getting picked unless I go out and do really well. It makes it a lot harder.
“I'm definitely going to have to force my way into the (Celtic) team or see what happens. I'm not sure what's going to happen in January, but I do want to play.
“I'm not going to say anything bad about Celtic and I would for it to happen at Celtic. I would love to play. But I'm 24 now as well and I want to play every game.
“I hope I get some game time here. It does help when the manager (Stephen Kenny) has shown faith in me. He has given me a lot of confidence to go out and play the way I want to and i want to do that again.
“Obviously if I can make an impact at international level then I should be able to do that at club level. As you say, it’s a big stage and if I can show that then all the better.”
On his general fitness, Johnston added: “I’d like to have done a lot more at this stage of my career, obviously. I had 18 months at one stage of quite bad injuries but I seem to have overcome that now and I’m playing. I would like to have done a lot more.
“Obviously what happens on the pitch affects your life massively and every footballer will tell you that. It’s hard to be happy when you’re not doing what you love.
“It comes hand in hand. People expected me to do more and I expected more of myself but there has been a lot of factors into why I haven’t done that, injuries probably been the main one.
“I didn’t have too much trust in my body at one stage, I was afraid to get injured and there was stuff happening but I seem to have overcome that. I’m confident again.”
