And that begins tomorrow afternoon at home to Forfar.
The 28-year-old winger initially joined Annan in 2018 following spells with Kilmarnock, Raith and Dumbarton. He was an instant fans favourite at Galabank as the Black and Golds narrowly missed out to Clyde in the League One play-off final in 2019. Johnston then signed for the Bully Wee in the third tier, but he returned to Galabank in 2021.
Dubbed ‘the wee Messi’ by the Galabank faithful, Johnston looks back to his best, scoring, assisting and getting supporters up off their seats when he receives the ball out wide and runs towards opposing defenders.
Speaking after the 5-1 second half demolition of Albion Rovers, where he scored one and assisted three, Johnston said: “We knew with the quality we’ve got in the changing room we could turn it around.
“We changed tactics and it paid off. Two quick goals and we were on the front foot then we went and finished the game.
“The second half was much better, we knew we had to get going and scoring early gave us that wee boost.
“It’s good to score goals. The kind of position I play I’ve got to score goals and try and get as many assists as I can.
“It’s only one game and we’ve got to kick on now.”
Due to the nature of the fixture schedule Athletic had no game last weekend, and before the Albion game the Black and Golds went 20 days without competitive action.
Johnston said: “It’s been broken up just now, we had a game and then we missed two weeks and we’re not playing again till January 7.
“Obviously when you get a couple of good results you want the games to come quick.
“When you get a break it’s easy to lose the fitness. You need to trust the boys to go and do stuff on their own and we’ve got a good bunch in there and I know we all did that as a team to keep fit.
“We will be in training working hard, and hopefully we can kick on in the second half of the season and get where we want to be.”
Time off to enjoy Christmas and New Year is a rare occasion in the professional leagues, but while the squad have had a moment to relax they will continue to keep the intensity high in training as the business end of the season starts to loom large.
Johnston added: “It’s back to business against Forfar we know that game is going to be tough.
“Every game this year is going to be tough.”
