Mikey Johnston revealed Ange Postecoglou and Celtic handed him an extra year onto his Celtic deal before sending him out on loan to Portugal and dropped hints over his future.

“Last season I still played 20 games for Celtic, so it’s not like I was pushed out the door.” Johnston told SunSport.

“I played in a cup final for the manager and he gave me an extra year when I left the club, so that gave me the faith to say he wants me to come back and produce. I needed consistency and more minutes.”

We’ve reached out to the club to find out if they’ve added a year onto Mikey’s deal that was supposed to run to 2025, or if they’ve guaranteed the contract until 2025, given Celtic sign a lot of players to deals where they can pick up an extra year option. Meaning Celtic could have potentially cut the deal in 2024.

Soccer Football – Premiership – Celtic v Heart of Midlothian – Celtic Park, Glasgow, Britain – May 19, 2019 Celtic’s Mikey Johnston in action with Heart of Midlothian’s John Souttar Action Images via Reuters/Lee Smith

The winger burst back into Celtic fans minds this week when he made his debut for Ireland after switching allegiances from Scotland who had never decided to call him up.

Johnston had a great half an hour during his Ireland debut and the attention is back on him at this moment in time.

Playing for Vitoria Guimares, Mikey has been able to play with some freedom and more importantly not picking up any long term injuries.

The Celtic Academy graduate believes there were inaccurate opinions of him before the loan move to Portugal.

Mikey revealed he had a good conversation with the Celtic boss and a move outside the UK was best for him in the short term.

“We had an honest conversation and he said it was best that I went elsewhere to get it. I was fine with that. I needed a freshen up.

Mikey Johnston

“Opinions on me weren’t accurate and I wanted to change that. I had to get away from the UK, to be honest.

“Portugal has been really good. I had quite a bad time with injuries in the last couple of years. For a full year, touch wood, I have been fine and managed to get back to full fitness.

“Vitoria has been a great platform for me. They are in a big league and it’s really competitive.

“I have had a lot of starts, a lot of games, a lot of consistency, which is what I needed. Will I be back at Celtic long-term? We will see. I don’t want to sit on the bench. I just want to feel important.”

If Mikey doesn’t want to sit on the bench next season with chances of getting onto the field later in the game, his Celtic future could already be decided for him.

There’s very little chance the midfielder is going to walk into a strong Celtic side and become a starter. Liel Abada’s future could give him an opening, but even at that, Liel is finding starts hard to come by under Ange.

It’s good to see Johnston thriving away from Celtic at the moment, the decisions will be made in the summer. One way or another, his future will be sorted out.

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