After spending most of the last year on the sidelines Cristian Gamboa seemed ready to take on any challenge as the million pound signing announced himself at Celtic yesterday.
The 26-year-old Costa Rican international full-back was a peripheral figure at West Bromwich Albion under Tony Pulis, playing just three games in the past year.
However, during a fleeting visit to his new club’s training ground at Lennoxtown, before heading off on international duty, he reckoned he would be able to recover from facing Haiti and Panama in World Cup qualifiers in time to face Rangers in the long-awaited Premiership clash at Celtic Park next week.
Read more: West Brom discard Gamboa believes he will fit in perfectly at Celtic
“I’ve been travelling like this for four or five years so I hope I’ll be ready because you get used to these flights, you get used to back and fore, back and fore every time,” he explained.
“I’ll be back next Thursday morning. So for me I’ll hopefully be ready, no injuries I hope, fit. I will just wait for Brendan to say if he needs me or not.
“I think I’ll be ready if he needs me. If he wants me to go on the bench or whatever he wants I’m going to have no problems.”
“I know they had to ask some questions about everything because I was not playing for a while, but you can see that I was playing for the national team even when I wasn’t playing for West Brom,” noted the 47-times capped international.
“Of course they wanted to make sure I was the player they wanted and everything went well.”
Gamboa knows that what confronted him at The Hawthorns has left him with a fair bit to prove.
“It was a difficult situation,” he admitted.
“Everyone knows about the gaffer there and the way he likes to play. I didn’t fit in to his plans and the way he played.
“Let’s just say it was different. Some times you have a manager who likes you, the next wants to do it a different way and. That’s life in football. There’s no hard feelings.
“It doesn’t matter to me now.”
He is clearly confident of receiving very different treatment at Celtic which he sees as a step up from the English Premier League side.
“I have closed the door and this one has opened for me at Celtic. This is a really big move for me and I am really happy to be here,” he said.
“People have asked me if this was the right move, if it was better than West Brom. It is not a step back or a step to the side, it is a step forward.”
Celtic defender Jozo Simunovic has meanwhile headed to Italy to undergo a medical ahead of a move to Torino.
Despite having denied he was on his way out of Glasgow, the 22-year-old jetted out to Italy to complete his move to the Serie A side where he could team up with on-loan Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart, who was paraded in Turin yesterday.
Signed from Dinamo Zagreb by former Celtic coach Ronny Deila for a reported £5.5m just one year ago, the Croatian centre back had been plagued by injury problems and made just 17 appearances for the club.
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