The story of Celtic’s left back position has been largely painful over the years. Emilio Izaguirre arrived after the 2010 Wold Cup and, for a few seasons at least, strengthened what was a perennial weak spot in the team. You’re going back decades, possibly to Danny McGrain himself, before you’ll find someone in the left back position Emilio wasn’t clearly a stand-out improvement on.
Having supplanted Emilio in the Celtic team, there’s a good chance that 18-year-old Kieran Tierney will make his Scotland debut tonight on his breakthrough season. It’s a great story for a player who has physicality and maturity beyond his years. We might just have a genuine player on our hands.
The echo of a big failure at left back still reverberates around the club. Seven years ago Sligo Rovers’ Seamus Coleman, was on trial at Lennoxtown, but was sent home as he wasn’t judged able to put pressure on Lee Naylor, during Gordon Strachan’s last season. Then reserve team coach, Willie McStay, recommended Coleman to Everton, where the player has turned into one of the best left backs in the English Premier League.
Assessing strikers is comparatively easy; there are objective statistics (goals scored) to inform your view, including at youth level. It’s not as easy assessing a defender, where picking a winner offers you only subjective opinions. Kieran has achieved far more than any of his teenage contemporaries this season, some of whom were more lauded than him.
Perhaps the crucial deciding factor in all this was who was given an extended run in the team. If you don’t allow your youth players to graduate (at the right time), and don’t sacrifice first team mainstays (at the right time) you’ll forever buy other teams’ graduates.
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Birthday wishes to LEFTCLICKTIC and Mrs BT.
HH!!
“John McGinn very impressive so far. Even though we have too many midfielders….”
Not his kind of midfielder though Dallas. I like the cut o his jib.
HH
DD
He looks good at this level so hopefully not another who gets away, Kieran doing well good technique buys him time on the ball.
Youn Kieran doing fine.
Scotland proving that no matter how many strikers you name in the team – you can still play as though you don’t have any :-)
I think Matt Ritchie has a bit of the Alan Thompson about him the way he whips in crosses. Good player.
Aye. No bad game at the national stadium considering.
HH
Bob Loblaw
Matt Ritchie reminds me of a younger, quicker Kris Commons
Also very impressed with Mcginn and Tierney maybe time to start giving the youngsters more game time. H H Hebcelt
Very remiss of me earlier. Happy birthday indeed to Leftclicktic. One of the nicest ghuys on the blog.
B.T. Happy birthday to Mrs B.T. I hope all the birthday bhoys and ghirls are having a fabulous evening.
Dallas
Saint Eunan’s Church, Primary and Saint Peter the Apostle High are all contained in the one complex now. My sister’s house faces all three. Handy. :)
Enjoyed the first half, new Scotland top with a bit of dye in it could become a hibs top. :)
Breithla shona big Leftie
Agus Mrs BT
Delaney’s, when John McGinn played for St Mirren against us , he was their most impressive player. He always gave Broonie a hard time .
If we did sign , he would be another leftie (sorry Macjay for using that word lol) in our squad.
In all our time supporting our team , this probably is the most amount of lefties we have ever had in the first team squad. We previously only would have about two or three in the squad , for example Tommy Burns and Mark Reid in the early eighties , Anton, big Whyte and Tommy in the mid to late eighties.
Craig Gordon, Kieran, Erik, Charlie, Callum, Leigh, Gary Mackay-Steven , Tom Rogic are all lefties
Stefan Johansen makes it 2-0 for Norway after Finnish keeper makes a mess of a back-pass and is chased down by Johansen.
Gearoid
Did you get to Dublin
|i hope we are keeping close tabs on McGinn. If we don’t sign him in the summer, he’ll be heading south and after that, out of our price range.
Good old Paul. Studiously avoiding talking about res 12.
Dessy
John McGinn is playing for Scotland tonight the same way he did when I saw him as a 12 year old running a midfield. Amazing spirit he has.
Geordie at 8.44, very good point.
He’s strong can pass the ball or run with it when required.
Dallas
Izzy, Johansen and Christie also lefties
DD
And he has dig
Mulgrew on for Tierney and Anya for Fletcher
Delaney’s, excellent choice of house by your sister.
When John mcginn was out of contract at St mirren I thought … given his fiery performances against us ..he was worth a punt.
Out of contract and happy with a few grand a week … Guess he was a victim of our high number of midfielders
Dallas
I would take another two lefties. Both Saint Peter the Apostle Clydebank FPs.
John McGinn and Christopher McLaughlin. Hahaha
Dallas,
Aye neebs. Broonys future replacement ;)
Gary67,
Ritchie does indeed have a Commons style about him
Kt aff after good showing. Getting ready for the hertz
HH
Neganon
Careful … that post might get deleted for bad language; )
Notable other St Eunan’s former pupils include Kevin Gallagher and Kevin Bridges …
Gr at effort by Shaun Maloney. Unlucky.
Good Ol Neg,trying to stir up a bit of controversy whilst the rest of us are trying to enjoy a bit of football.
Gary, practically a whole team of lefties we could field.
That little punk Vladimir Weiss is on for Slovakia
Sips~Hebcelt
I don’t have a problem with Whitiker as such apart from the fact he is brutal, must have been all them years at the bigot dome.
The young fellas are showing up well, why not give a young fella a shot at the RB position, couldn’t do any worse imo.
HH
Scotland are two centre halves short of being a decent team. Problem is there’s no obvious players who could come in and improve the central defence and no promising youngsters either.
We should have signed John McGinn last summer when he was free ( development fee ), as quite a few of us CQN’rs suggested.
Instead we pursued Scott Allan, who after 8 months and £250k transfer fee later cannot get into our team.
A personal opinion, but a midfield with McGinn & Christie, would most certainly drive us on a forward trajectory – that is as a team move forward, and slightly less sideways :-)
Hail Hail
Geordie, John McGinn is the only Scottish player I can think of who could possibly replace Broonie.
Delaney’s , that post put a smile on my miserable coupon.
Dallas
Ronny and Johnny are both southpaws too!
Good old Neganon2, studiously avoiding talking about football!! H H Hebcelt