With a dozen players out on loan and five taking part in the u-17 European Championship Finals in Croatia, Brendan Rodgers isn’t swamped with youngsters to freshen up his side over the remaining matches of the season.
In other circumstances now would be the ideal time to give Jack Aitchison and Kristoffer Ajer a taste of top team football but in January Rodgers decided to sent Ajer to Kilmarnock for first team experience while Aitchison is captaining Scotland at the u-17 European finals.
Over the last fortnight the hoops boss has watched his club win the Glasgow Cup and SFA Youth Cup and it’s easy to say that the quality on offer in the u-20 final at Hampden was far superior to the u-17 version at Firhill.
Rather than deflect Rodgers was fairly scathing in his comments on the u-17 final with anyone comparing the two matches coming to the same conclusions.
With a cup final three weeks away there will be no letting up in the final league fixtures but with an eye to the future two kids have been left out of the Development League side this week to concentrate fully on training with the first team and are sure to feature at some stage against St Johnstone.
MIKEY JOHNSTON
After comparing Mikey to Aiden McGeady earlier this week someone suggested to me that Patrick Roberts is a better comparison. I’ll settle for either.
Johnston is a bag of tricks that the Celtic academy coaching staff have worked on developing and end product.
Last season he was shared scoring duties with Jack Aitchison as the u-17 side won the double of league title and Glasgow Cup.
Johnston rejected the chance to go out on loan at the start of the season to work his way into the Development League team- since the turn of the year he has been one of the key players.
The 18-year-old is comfortable in any of the three attacking midfield roles, over the next two years he could develop into as bright a talent as McGeady or Roberts.
ANTHONY RALSTON
The 18-year-old enjoyed a fantastic spell out on loan at Queens Park in the first half of last season and earned a recall as understudy to Mikael Lustig despite offers of loan deals to Championship clubs.
Unfortunately he was injured almost as soon as he returned to Celtic but did make his first team debut away to St Johnstone in the second last game of last season.
At the start of this season Ralston got a brief run out in the Betfred Cup tie against Motherwell but has had to bide his time with Cristian Gamboa brought in.
Ralston is a very attack minded right-back but is tough in the tackle and has a real grasp of the defensive side of the game.