Maghoma's mission

Christian Maghoma gave an honest assessment of the biggest match of his career so far.

The young defender, just 16 and a First Year Academy scholar, stepped out for the first time for our Under-21s in the Barclays U21 Premier League clash against Norwich City at Carrow Road.

He found himself up against Gary Hooper, the striker who scored 82 goals in 137 matches and won the lot at Celtic.

Hooper didn’t hit the target on this occasion but Norwich ran out 3-1 winners in front of a league record attendance of 10,405.

Carlton Morris’ header unfortunately deflected home off Connor Ogilvie after four minutes, Cameron King made it 2-0 before the break but we’d responded well to the early setback, created as many chances as the home team and pulled a goal back via Cristian Ceballos’ cracker on 56 minutes.

However, just as we looked right in the game, King scored his second to make it 3-1 on 70 minutes and that’s how it stayed.

“I thought it was a great experience, one I want to learn from but slightly ruined by how we lost and that I felt I could have done better with some of the goals we conceded,” reflected Christian at Carrow Road.

“Overall, I thought I played alright but I have to do better next time. I will keep pushing on and trying to improve every game.

“We started slowly and personally, I thought I could have been more aggressive but we responded well in the second half and I thought I did that as well, I was more aggressive.

“Playing against a striker who has played Champions League football and scored all those goals for a club like Celtic can only improve you.”

Christian’s immediate target was to impress at Under-18 level – he’s started six of eight games so far – and then take his chance again at Under-21 level.

“Hopefully, if selected, I want to excel for the Under-18s and then earn a place back in the Under-21s and if that happens, to give a better performance than tonight,” he added.