Mikey Johnston: ‘All the lads love Stephen Kenny. We would love to try to keep him here’

For Mikey Johnston, every game must feel like an audition these days.

If first impressions last, then because of his eye-catching dribbling run just moments after coming on for his first Irish cap against Latvia back in March, the Celtic player can expect to be affectionately nicknamed Jinky Johnston forever more by Ireland fans.

His impulse to play on the front foot on his debut and surge at opponents with pace and trickery and without fear energised the Aviva Stadium that night – a Scot playing like a Brazilian in an Ireland shirt.

But in the eight months since making his Ireland bow after switching allegiance from Scotland, Johnston’s club career has continued to stutter.

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He has made one appearance for Celtic this season under Brendan Rodgers – as a second-half sub in a scoreless draw against Hibernian last month. The 24-year-old, who was on loan with Portuguese outfit Vitoria Guimaraes last season, may again have to look outside of Glasgow for regular football.

“No player is going to be happy when they’re not playing,” says Johnston, who came through Celtic’s youth academy. “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 but we just have to see what happens.

“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.”

In what has been a difficult period at club level for Johnston, Stephen Kenny has shown belief in him – he has made six appearances for Ireland, though five were off the bench. His sole start was in last month’s 4-0 win over Gibraltar, during which Johnston scored his second goal for Ireland.

“It does help when the manager has shown faith in me. He has given me a lot of confidence to go out and play the way I want to.

“I think I just offer the team something different, to be honest, my one-v-one ability. I can make things happen that maybe other players couldn’t. It’s tough to say, it’s the manager who makes the decision to bring me in and I have to repay him and show him what I can do on the pitch.”

Johnston hopes to get the opportunity to display his wares on Saturday night against the Netherlands in Amsterdam.

“Obviously, if I can make an impact at international level then I should be able to do that at club level. It’s a big stage and if I can show that then all the better.”

And while it is easy to dismiss Saturday’s match as largely meaningless, Johnston says the players are determined to get a positive result against the Dutch – for Kenny as much as anybody else.

“The results have not gone our way recently but we’re wanting to finish it strong at least and get positive results,” says Johnston.

“I think we have shown that we can compete. [In] the game at home against Netherlands – I wasn’t there – we played really well and were pretty unlucky.

“[Stephen] obviously called me in and gave me my debut, he has called me up when other managers probably wouldn’t as I’ve not been playing as much as I would like to, but he has shown a lot of faith in me and I just want to repay him.

“He’s a great guy. All the lads love him and a lot of the nation love him as well. He gives everything in his job and we’re trying to get results for him, but it hasn’t gone our way. We would love to try and keep him here.”

Johnston has played against the Dutch away before, lining out for Scotland in a 2-1 win in a European under-21 championship qualifier in 2018. He represented Scotland at all levels from under-15s through to under-21s.

That all feels like another lifetime ago though. Johnston is more concerned with the future, getting regular club football and increasing his international caps for Ireland.

“I’d like to have done a lot more at this stage of my career,” he says. “I had 18 months at one stage of quite bad injuries but I seem to have overcome that now and I’m playing.

“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 being 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 did have an injury at the start of the year but it was a freak one and maybe [for] 18 months before that I was fine with no injuries. I’m confident again.”