Celtic midfielder Nir Biton is feeling comfortable at Parkhead after experiencing an initial culture shock when he moved to Scottish football.
The 22-year-old Israeli has only made three Scottish Premiership starts since signing from Ashdod in August and his Champions League debut lasted only 11 minutes before he was sent off after coming on during Celtic's 2-1 win over Ajax.
But Biton feels the club's recent mini-winter break in Turkey, where they played Trabzonspor and Galatasaray, has helped him bed into the squad.
"The trip to Turkey has helped me to communicate more with the players and to settle into the team, so it was very important for me," Biton said
"In the previous month I didn't get a lot of time on the pitch, and I needed to try and prove myself as I am still a new boy at the club so hopefully I gave the coaches a reason to play me.
"When I came here in the beginning the football in Scotland was totally different to what I was used to back home.
"In European football you have much more time and space than what you imagine, while in Scotland you don't have space to get on the ball, and that's very different.
"Now I feel more comfortable on and off the pitch."
Biton attempted to score from his own half against Galatasaray and promised to do so again.
"When I got the ball I looked up and saw the goalkeeper outside his goal so I tried to shoot the ball over the keeper, and with a bit more luck I might have got a goal," he said.
"I tried it before with the national team at under-21s and also at Ashdod. I haven't scored like this yet but I promise one time I will score. I will try it again - but not all the time."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article