Celtic defender Christopher Jullien has expressed his excitement at making a long-awaited return from injury going into next season.
The Frenchman has been out of action since the end of December and been recovering from a long-term injury, which at first was expected to keep him out till around October time.
Now though, it looks like the defender could be on course for an earlier return than expected after his rehab.
In an interview with the Celtic View Podcast, Jullien admitted he couldn’t wait to run out at Parkhead next season when fans hopefully return to the ground, whilst also reliving the dreadful injury he picked up that day against Dundee United, revealing which player was there to console him after the nasty collision with the post.
“At the moment when I got injured, I remember Odsonne coming up to me and saying, ‘Chris, don’t worry. It’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay.’
“The first thing I said to him was that I was going to miss the Rangers game. It was a really important game that could have put our season on the other side, so to miss that was really difficult in my mind. And then to miss all the rest of the games was so painful.
I was devastated. Every time in my career when I’ve had a little injury, I always thought I would come back really fast.
“So to have those ups and downs – I missed about a month and a half because of my back, and then I came back, I was feeling good, we won the trophy and everything was really good and I was thinking the season was coming and we would be coming back.
“I just missed the adrenaline and everything we have when we play football, so to have to watch my teammates on the screen was just painful because you can’t do anything. I would text them sometimes and wish them luck. It’s been a long time and it was really difficult.
“Seriously, my family was crazy when they were watching me watching the games, either I’d be talking too much or I couldn’t watch some moments in the game because it was stressing me so much. It’s good to see the team when they have good moments, but when it’s a little bit more difficult, it’s sometimes a little bit difficult to watch.
“The goal now is to be back with the team for pre-season and I’ll do my best to do this.”
Speaking about finally running out in front of fans at Parkhead, Jullien added:
“I don’t want to get too excited until I see it,” he said. “It was a difficult season. We fought and did our best but we know that the fans give us so much strength and ability. They make our opponents fear when they come into our stadium and even in their stadium, so it’s something that we missed this season and I just hope to see them next season because we definitely need them for everything that we can achieve.”
