Ceballos happy with summer showings

Cristian Ceballos rued not getting on the scoresheet against Schalke, but insisted he’s happy with his pre-season campaign on the whole.

The Spanish forward, who spent time on loan at FC Arouca in the Portuguese top flight last term, featured as a substitute in our recent friendlies against Seattle Sounders and Toronto FC – as well as against the German side last Saturday – as we completed our warm-up campaign unbeaten.

He went close to hitting the target twice in the closing moments of our 2-1 victory in the latter game, first producing a good save from goalkeeper Ralf Fahrmann and then chipping over the bar after Andros Townsend’s effort was parried into his path.

In spite of those chances passing him by, it’s all added up to an encouraging few weeks for the 21-year-old, with the former Barcelona youth team player now looking to further his development during the 2014-15 campaign.

“I’m happy with how it’s been going,” said Cristian, reflecting on his summer performances. “I had two opportunities to score in the last 10 minutes against Schalke – the first one the keeper got a very good hand to and the second was too high.

“It was a very important game against a good Schalke team in the last game of pre-season and I was happy to come on.

“I feel like I am progressing. I’ve played in three games which I'm happy about but now I want to get more games under my belt.”