‘CANNOT WAIT,’ McCOWAN D-DAY HOPE

0

LUKE McCOWAN is looking forward to his personal D-Day.

The Celtic midfielder revelled in his first start for the champions as he claimed the opening goal in the 3-0 win over Motherwell at Fir Park at the weekend.

Now McCowan is focused on tomorrow night as he hopes to get the go-ahead to face his old Dundee team-mates at Parkhead – just two months after leaving the Tayside club.

The 26-year-old late bloomer made startling progress at Dens Park after joining from Ayr United in July 2021.

His consistency did not escape the gaze of Brendan Rodgers and a dream came true for the boyhood Hoops fan when he joined the Parkhead club in a £1million deal on deadline day.

PARADISE…Luke McCowan shows his joy after his deadline-day arrival from Dundee.

Shortly afterwards, McCowan made his debut as a second-half substitute in the 3-0 derby triumph over Philippe Clement’s shell-shocked Ibrox outfit and he netted his first goal a week later in the 2-0 success over Hearts at the same venue.

After five appearances off the bench, the action man got the green light from Rodgers to make his first start with skipper Callum McGregor not risked in Lanarkshire and the Greenock-born player was not going to fail his manager, his colleagues, the fans – or himself.

McCowan said: “You’ve got to stay calm. It’s something I want to be doing. It’s not as if I’ve won the lottery to get a start.

“You’ve got to work hard to get that. It means you’re doing something well. And I was. And then to get the nod to start shows the manager’s got a bit of trust in me.

“Obviously, when you come here as a fan, everybody can hype it up and make it a lot more than what it is, but I’ve got to go there and perform.

THAT’S MY BHOY…Callum McGregor congratulates Luke McCowan after his debut in the 3-0 derby win at Parkhead at the start of September. 

“It’s like any other promotion in a job, isn’t it? You get excited when you first get there, but as soon as you’re there, you can’t just put the tools down and stop doing it.

“You need to go and graft away and put the hard work in, get myself fitter, get myself in the team and make impacts, not just run about and make a couple of passes.”

McCowan, speaking to the Daily Record, continued: “I kind of need to go and prove that I deserve a start and deserve to be playing. I think I’ve done well enough to do that.

“It’s about scoring goals and getting assists. It’s about getting three points and doing that game by game, so that’s my kind of job.

“I know the squad here is probably about 24, 26 amazing players, so you’ve got to make sure you’re training well and playing well and you’ve got chances to keep in that squad, not just get in the starting team.

“So, for the manager to put me in the starting team shows that he’s got a lot of faith in me, but I need to reward him back by doing things like scoring and getting assists, so I just need to keep at it.

“It’s a game of football at the end of the day, I know I’ve worked hard to get here. I’ve been told by numerous people at the club that once you’re here it’s about showing you deserve to be here and I’m not going to get all excited.”

PRIZE GUYS…Luke McCowan and James Forrest share the joy after the new Bhoy’s goal at Fir Park.

Reflecting on the Fir Park milestone, McCowan commented: “It was great. A 3-0 victory. It went about as smoothly as I could have hoped.

“It’s good to just be out there helping the team and having an impact on the game.”

Looking ahead to playing against his former team-mates under the lights in the east end of Glasgow tomorrow night, the middle-of-the-park dynamo added: “Cannot wait. Obviously, after the back of Motherwell, it’ll be nice, hopefully.

“We know it’s going to be a hard game as always, but we’re looking forward to it.

“As soon as the game finished at Fir Park, our eyes were on Wednesday and it’s just game by game now.”

Click Here for Comments >
Share.

About Author