Neil Lennon is looking to give his Next Gen kids a serious taste of top team football over the next few weeks.
Like the first team the u-19 side are within touching distance of the championship requiring one win from their last three matches assuming Hearts beat Hibs tomorrow.
Dylan McGeough, Filip Twardzik, Marcus Fraser and Paul George have all sampled top team football this season with Lennon determined to give them more first team action.
“We’d like to give the younger ones a bit more playing time but at the minute we can’t do that,” Lennon explained to Celtic tv. “If we can get over the line soon enough in the league we’ll be looking to blood some of the younger ones.
“Not just one game but maybe two or three to get experience. I’m delighted with the progress that their making, Chris and the guys at Academy level have a fantastic job and we’re really pleased with the next bunch coming through.
“We’re not going to get three or four in at a time, if we get one or two in a season that is a fantastic return.
“There may be seasons where we don’t get any through. Some of them aren’t going to make it at this level, there is no shame in that.
“But I think that there are one or two bubbling under who’ll come to the fore in the next couple of years.”
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Who do you think are the main candidates to get the push up to the first team in the next couple of weeks ?
Filip Twardzik and Dylan McGeough have been with the first team more than the 19s so I’d expect them to get their chance.
From the 19s I’d think that Marcus Fraser, Tony Watt and Paul George are most likely to be called up.
Not far behind them are Joe Chalmers, John Herron, Callum McGregor and Jackson Irvine.
All of those players are very capable of stepping up and making an impact in the first team.
I remember when Lenny took over as caretaker he included a young guy called forrest in his team. I thought it was a typo in the text message I received with the team news as I hadn’t heard of him. Forrest came off the bench and scored that day. Look at him now…
Lenny will work wonders with some of these young guys if they keep the right attitude.
Hail hail.
The games I have attended this season I would say top performers are Paul George ,John Herron ,Filip Twardzik, Callum mc Gregor and Joseph chalmers , and they bought the boy Anthony Watt from airdrie for 75k but what I have seen of him he has not got anything really to be excited about got a lot of power and strength but not the technique or class I would expect a Celtic youngster to have.