Source: FOOTYMAD
Wilson eases himself in
It takes a while to get to know your new team mates so you can do without the pressure of points being at stake Celtic will play their eighth summer friendly tonight when they take on Swansea, but Kelvin Wilson is grateful for the busy schedule before the league season really takes off. After signing a pre-contract deal with Celtic early in January, Wilson did not play for Nottingham Forest again and had only played 10 games previously in an injury-hit season. He feels the friendly games have allowed him to get to know his team-mates and to get back up to speed in a less demanding situation. The centre-back started Celtic's opening SPL win over Hibs and was not frustrated to have to wait two weeks for the second, against Aberdeen on Sunday. Celtic opted out of the second weekend of games to take on Inter Milan and an Airtricity League select in the Dublin Super Cup. Wilson said: "I think it's helping. It's showing in training, everyone is getting sharper. The Inter game was a great experience, playing against world-class players, which you don't do every week. I took a few things from it." Celtic's pre-season schedule started in Australia, where they played three games, and Wilson felt the tour was vital to help him settle in. He said: "Everyone knows Rangers and Celtic are big clubs but when you get here and see the fanbase and the set-up, it blows you away. It's not just the fans who expect, you expect yourself and the manager expects. But the hardest part is settling in and getting to know players, which I'm doing and enjoying it." Neil Lennon will leave some first-team players behind with Sunday's game in mind when they travel to Wales. The manager said: "We'll try and put a good team out. Again, we might look at a different formation and see how that suits some of the players. We'll go with a strongish team, and we will leave some of the more senior boys who put a lot of effort in over the weekend behind just so they have a couple of training days ahead of the game at Pittodrie."
