Celtic ace reveals he saw psychologist and moved out of West End flat to escape fan pressure that was affecting his game
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ALISTAIR JOHNSTON has revealed he had to see a psychologist to help him cope in the Old Firm goldfish bowl.
The Celtic right-back moved to Glasgow from Canada in January 2023 and was handed a baptism of fire by Ange Postecoglou, making his debut against RANGERS at Ibrox just days after he arrived in Scotland.
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Alistair Johnston has a contract which runs until 2029
Credit: Kenny Ramsay
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The Celtic defender during his debut against Rangers
Credit: Willie Vass
He wasn't given much time to get his bearings in Scotland with fixtures coming thick and fast as he started 19 out of the 25 remaining games - missing four through injury and benched for wins against Hearts and Kilmarnock.
The Canadian, 26, still managed to hit the ground running in the SPFL, though, and quickly became a fan favourite at Parkhead as he finished the season without being on the losing side.
Not many players have had such an impact so early in their Celtic careers - especially after moving thousands of miles to a new home across the globe.
But Johnston has admitted that he struggled to stick with the same tempo and fire in his second season after learning just how much pressure was on his shoulders.
He lived in the West End of Glasgow for the first few months but had to move out when the stress of being a celebrity in the city started taking its tole on his performances and mental health.
Asked about the pressure that comes with playing for Celtic, Johnston told One Soccer: 'It's something that I actually learned as I got to Celtic. It was something that you hear about, you know, it's a fishbowl, all these different things.
'You never really truly feel it or can understand or grasp it until you're actually living it.
"So, I think through about the first six months to a year, I just kind of was taking everything in. And after that, it started to weigh on me.
'I could tell performances were lagging a little bit and I just felt like I was a little overwhelmed.
"That's when I actually started speaking to a sports psychologist and they really helped me with understanding, okay, yeah, being out in public in Glasgow is really difficult. It's taxing and understanding that.
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'And don't feel like you need to constantly put on a face, but understand that, okay, that is when you leave your front door, it's gonna be like that. So, you need to have alternate ways to just completely decompress.
"That's when I decided I was gonna move from a flat in the West End and move out and get a house with a private garden and everything, so that we could have the dog running about and just have a bit more privacy.
'And that's something that I learned is that it was those smaller sacrifices, kind of things like that, that made a big difference for me.
"Having your own personal space and just finding ways to get away from it. And again, I'm only famous in a 20-mile radius of Glasgow.'
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