Henderson attempts to buck Celtic youth syndrome

For as long as you or I can remember, Celtic’s youth teams have had a fearsome reputation, winning countless titles, even with Kenny McDowall as head coach, but something inevitably goes wrong.  Clubs like Dundee United, Hibs, Hearts and even Hamilton Accies have a better record of graduating prospects, despite having a poorer youth team to pick from.

The other fearsome reputation we had, was that Celtic was one of the places young talent came to wither on the vine, before shuffling off to a minor club at around 21-years-old.  Where would you send your boy, Celtic or Dundee United………?

The argument goes that clubs like United have more opportunity to blood young talent than Celtic, who for long periods of the last 20 years were locked in an all-or-nothing battle for supremacy, or the need to reach the Champions League group stage, or the next level of the Champions League.  This theory doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, though, as clubs with higher still demands are able to mature young talent through first team exposure.

The truth is it’s never been a first team priority, as we have been caught in a ‘buy success’ mentality for close to 30 years.

Still only 18, Liam Henderson has as much chance as anyone who have come through the ranks in the last couple of decades of making it as a top player at Celtic, but he needs to be stretched by playing competitive senior football over the next three years, cameo appearances here and there will not provide the platform he needs.  A few months at Rosenborg, who kick off a new league season on Monday, will give him opportunities he’s not going to see at Celtic between now and the end of the season.

Did you see what newco director, Paul Murray, did with his stock market announcement yesterday?

He wrote, “‎I have been informed by Deloitte, the existing auditor, that they informed the previous Board of their intention to resign following the June 2014 audit. The previous Board chose not to announce this nor did they find a replacement for Deloitte. With limited time to have these results reviewed the Board asked Jeffreys Henry to perform the exercise as Independent Reporting Accountants, not auditors.”

On reading this many were inclined to conclude the reason Deloitte did not act as Independent Reporting Accountants for their interims was because they had left the building.  Not so.  Murray later confirmed to a Daily Record financial reporter (not the football guys) that Deloittes are still newco’s auditors.  I am sure there is a perfectly good reason they didn’t sign off the interims.  Maybe they were busy that day.