Jota 'met some demons' during long injury absence

Jota admits he “met some demons” during his long injury absence but believes there is no need to “rush” his return to full match fitness at Celtic.

The Portuguese winger, 27, sustained cruciate ligament damage in April 2025 and made his first-team return last weekend in the 2-0 win at Motherwell.

And, after coming off the bench again in Sunday’s 7-1 Scottish Premiership victory at home to Hearts, Jota believes the ordeal has strengthened his character.

“I’ve met some demons and I’ve had some good talks with them,” he said. “We developed a good relationship and we are all on the same table nowadays and we can laugh about everything that happened.

“If you don’t grow from a situation like this, it’s because you didn’t learn anything.

“I could step away, see different things from other perspectives and value some stuff that maybe I wasn’t valuing before.

“I have a clear idea of what I want, what I am. There’s no lost time because I grew a lot. It had to be what it had to be and I didn’t lose. I actually gained because I’m way stronger nowadays.”

Jota’s game time will be restricted to domestic games in the short term as he is not in Celtic’s Europa League squad, with Celta Vigo visiting Glasgow on Thursday (20:00 BST).

However, he is valuing what playing opportunities he has.

“My love for football is immense,” he explained. “Maybe someone else wouldn’t want to come back because of the struggle or some guys just don’t have that in themselves.

“That was my fuel to keep on working every day, to be healthy and fit, even if things weren’t going that way.

“This is my dream. It’s my passion. So there’s moments where you reflect, there’s moments where you’re down and you cannot see any light but that doesn’t mean that you stop believing. You just need to find another way.

“My aim was always to come back fit, whatever time I need to take because I still have a long career in front of me and I’m still young.

“So there’s no rush, let’s do everything correctly and just trust the process.”