Marco Tilio blames injury for scuppering hopes of making impact at Celtic

Marco Tilio revealed injury scuppered any hopes he had of making an impact at Celtic this season.

The Aussie talent returned to his homeland to rejoin Melbourne City on loan after an underwhelming spell with the Hoops, who he joined in June in a £1.5 million deal.

But the 22-year-old reckons he had no chance of making an impression on Brendan Rodgers because of an injury he picked up before he signed his five-year deal

He said: “I went away with the Australia Under 23s and got injured. I then thought it would be a week-long injury. I signed the contract at Celtic and then obviously I was injured and out for three months.

“So it doesn’t help, and then you’re competing with eight or nine other wingers that are just as good as you, if not better, and it was always going to be a difficult road trying to get into that team of Celtic and I was always playing catch-up.

“But I believed I was ready to leave Australia. I’d done my time here, and I thought I’d done really well and the build-up all the way until then when I made that decision to go there, I thought I was ready.

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“You can’t tell in football obviously.

“I felt I got up to the speed of what the other boys were at and probably deserved to play, have an opportunity to play.

“But there’s a lot of players there, a lot of quality, and it’s never going to be easy.

“So it was a tough six months for my football, but it’s always a learning curve for me and we’ll see what happens in the future.

“But no, I don’t think I left Australia too early.

“Now it’s an important six months for me.

“I want to help Australia qualify for another Olympics, and for myself, if I can get myself to another Olympic Games it’d be pretty special, so that played a big factor in my return.”

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