After 18 difficult, gruelling and painstaking months, Jota was back in the starting XI for Celtic and showing the world what he can do.

On Sunday, Celtic beat Kilmarnock 1-0, with Martin O’Neill dropping the pleasant news of naming Jota in his starting XI for the fixture at Parkhead.

Celtic winger Jota taken off as a precaution against Kilmarnock

First and foremost, the most important thing of all is that Jota is back on the field of play, after what has been a very serious injury.

This is going to take a long time to recover from, regarding the player finding that speed at his feet and in his brain, that mobility, swagger and power to make the ball talk like he used to under Ange Postecoglou.

It may even take this whole season to get there, and Celtic might not even see the Jota of old until next season, so fans will have to be very patient.

In the meantime, while O’Neill was hoping that Jota would play around an hour against Kilmarnock, his worries about the winger towards the end of the first half resulted in the player going off.

“Jota? That was his first start,” said O’Neill. “I maybe thought he might get 60 minutes in the game. But he was really tiring in the last ten minutes before half-time.

“I said to him before the game, ‘I don’t expect you to go the whole way, and we will see how it is at half-time.’

“But I just thought he was getting tired in the last ten minutes, particularly chasing back, and Yang was ready to go. And Yang has been brilliant for us.”

Jota’s minutes for Celtic since returning from a long-term injury

Remember, Jota isn’t in Celtic’s Europa League squad, and if the team can secure their passage into the knockout stages, it will be interesting to see if he is added in.

But until then, the most important thing isn’t the attacking output of Jota, but the minutes he is building up, up and up.

There was even a period where Jota was left out of Celtic’s matchday squad against Falkirk because of their plastic pitch, so O’Neill, the coaching staff and the medical team are being very patient and rightfully cautious with the player.

• Jota’s games since returning from injury: 5
• Starts: 1
• Off the bench: 4
• Unused sub: 0
• Not made Premiership matchday squad: 1
• Total minutes: 177