The Ireland defender will return to Scottish Premiership action on Sunday away to Dundee.
Liam Scales (second from right)(Image: Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
Liam Scales says it was a “massive honour” to wear the Celtic armband in Callum McGregor’s absence.
And the Ireland defender is looking forward to taking on more responsibilities as he continues his development in a dressing room that is “full of leaders.”
Scales has featured in 30 of the club’s 31 Scottish Premiership games to date. The only time he has missed out so far this season was when he remained on the bench in the late December clash with Livingston.
He wore the armband twice in the league – against Livingston in August and Motherwell in mid-March – while he was also captain in the Scottish Cup quarter-final win over Rangers.
“I’ve stood in for Cal when he’s injured at Celtic, and it was a great honour, massive honour,” said Scales.
“And the older I get, the more of that sort of leadership role I have to take on. That’s just part of it. The dressing room’s full of leaders and that’s a really good dressing room to have.”
And it’s a dressing room that hasn’t given up hope of retaining the Premiership title, despite the five-point gap between the third-placed Bhoys and leaders Hearts.
There are just two games remaining before the top- and bottom-six split, with each side playing five more games between then and May 17.
Celtic had enjoyed a strong run in the wake of Martin O’Neill’s return, but some recent defeats, including away to Dundee United and at home to Hibernian, have proved costly.
“We want to win a cup,” said Scales, “and we feel that if we can win the rest of our league games, we’ll have a really good chance of winning the league. So there’s still a double to play for.
“We’re not in the best position, but it’s all about now putting pressure on Hearts and Rangers and just bringing it to the wire.”
Meanwhile, Scales believes the pain of Ireland’s World Cup play-off exit can fuel future successes on the biggest stages.
He was forced to watch Thursday’s heartbreaking defeat to Czechia from the stand, as he served a suspension.
He was hoping to make his return in an Aviva Stadium decider against Denmark, with a place in the World Cup finals at stake.
Instead, he is vying for a place in the starting-11 in a friendly between the two Path D play-off losers, with North Macedonia the opponents.
Once that’s out of the way, and Heimir Hallgrímsson’s men complete a summer friendly programme against Grenada, Qatar and Canada, thoughts will begin to turn to Euro 2028 and beyond.
Will the players carry into that campaign scars from their penalty shootout defeat in Prague?
“I don’t think so,” Scales replied. “As a whole, when you look where we were a few months ago, we were written off in that sense. There was a slim chance of us even getting to this point.
“The players know now it’s a tough defeat to take, but they do know that we did as much as we could right. We played well.
“It’s fine margins, little bits and pieces maybe we can tidy up on, but at the same time we played well. We took it right down to the wire. We were five minutes away from qualifying.
“We were one kick of a ball away from qualifying, you know, in the penalty shoot out.
“It’s just really disappointing, but there’s just too many positives as well to just ignore the way we try things around and I don’t think the players will struggle to get over this.
“It hurts a lot, but long term, I think it will be good for us.
“We’ve such a good, good group of lads, and we’ve got a belief now from the last few games to take on now to the next campaign.
“You’ve got a brilliant core group of lads who are coming into the prime of their careers.
“Over the next few years it’s really what we have to look at, the next couple of tournaments with these guys, because we’ve shown that we can beat big teams and I think things are starting to come together for us.
“The aim, obviously, is to qualify for the next tournament. And you know, we have a good chance of that because we’re a host nation.”