Neil Lennon was thrilled to see Fraser Forster make his England debut on Friday against Chile.
The giant Geordie has been a personal project for the Celtic boss who twice signed Forster on loan before paying out £1.5m to make the move from Newcastle permanent.
Despite the sneering of many in England the Celtic keeper is now challenging Joe Hart to be first choice with Lennon delighted by Forster’s progress.
“He (Forster) will be disappointed by the result but I don’t think that there is a lot that he could have done about either of the goals,” the Celtic boss stated.
“It’s probably one of the best things I’ve been involved in with management- getting a player who was third choice at Newcastle and now he is playing for England.
“I liked his presence, Paul Lambert had him at Norwich and recommended him to me, Alan Thompson knew him from his time at Newcastle and we’ve worked and worked on him.
“For a big guy he works very hard on his agility all the time to fill up the goal. When he makes saves his big arms bat the ball away, his performances in the Champions League have been one of the main reasons for our success in the last two seasons.”
Looking at the wider international scene the Celtic boss added: “We had good news last night with Nigeria qualifying so Efe Ambrose will be going to the World Cup.
“We’ve got a few already there and Samaras and Lustig still have opportunities to get there.
“While it’s worrying it’s very important for the players- there are two ends of the spectrum. Some come back full of it and others need to be picked up when they come back on the end of a disappointing result.
“We encourage them all to go away with their countries, it’s very important for them. Some of them are very patriotic, they love playing for their countries but my worry is that they travel so far away these days.
“I’m not getting them back till Thursday or Friday and only get one day to work with them before the game at the weekend.”
It must be murder being a whocastle utd supporter.
Knowing their hatred for the Hoops and love of all things hunnish they must be gutted at knowing Lenny took pardew for the talentless t#sser he is, turned the big man into the international he is in two seasons, hopefully a lengthy career ahead and if not a hefty return to the club, that had anyone at whocastle had a scooby doo should have gone to them.
Meanwhile poor old allan partridge flutters around convincing not got a cluecastle supporters what a football wizard he is, justifying why he sold the best keeper in the UK to Celtic for a mill and a half.
Never mind they’ve always got the news coming out of the hunnery to cheer themselves up.
The best fun since our hero smarmed to Ticketus ‘ hellooo my name’s Craig’.
HH