Ciftci out to prove he has Celtic future

Nadir Ciftci is aiming to show Brendan Rodgers that his long-term future is at Celtic Park.

Ciftci scored in Rodgers' first pre-season friendly in charge of Celtic, a 2-2 draw with Celje in Slovenia on Thursday night.

The 24-year-old had a disappointing first season at Parkhead following his £1.5million move from Dundee United, scoring four goals in 12 games before being loaned to Turkish side Eskisehirspor for the second half of the campaign.

But while fellow strikers Colin Kazim-Richards, Carlton Cole, Anthony Stokes and Stefan Scepovic have all left since Rodgers took charge, Ciftci has been offered the chance to prove himself.

"It's good to be back and I'm very happy to work with a big manager like this again and hopefully be part of things at Celtic for the future,'' he told Celtic TV.

"It's been almost two weeks that we've been working and it's been very good with the new manager. Everything's new and it's been very positive on the training ground and we worked hard in the game as well.

"It's always good to get a goal but the most important thing is to get the fitness back, to do the right things that the manager asks on the pitch. To get a goal was great but we were 2-0 down at the time and it was a really good attitude from the boys to get back to 2-2.''

Rodgers was pleased to see Ciftci take on board his demands in the friendly.

"I thought he was excellent,'' the Celtic boss said.

"I thought he held the ball up really well, he pressed the ball and we ask our strikers to have that ability to press the game and the goalkeeper and I thought he was very good.

"His hold-up play was excellent, he brought others in and obviously it was good positioning to score his goal so I thought he was very good.''