Tony Ralston has the chance to do Celtic a title favour tomorrow when St Johnstone host Steven Gerrard’s side.
The 20-year-old has had a roller-coaster career at Celtic with a loan move to Perth agreed on transfer deadline day after Celtic had signed up Moritz Bauer on loan to compete with Hatem Abd Elhamed.
Ralston played for 70 minutes of the 4-1 win away to AIK at the end of last month but it has seemed fairly clear that his Celtic prospects would be extremely limited this season.
Two years ago the Academy graduate was in the spotlight after playing against Paris Saint Germain in the Champions League but his career hit a downward spiral after suffering a knee injury a couple of weeks later.
At Christmas time last season he looked like getting another opportunity, scoring against Motherwell in his first game of the season on December 19, retaining his place against Dundee three days later then putting in a decent second half performance in the 1-0 defeat at Ibrox.
During that derby appearance he was on the wrong end of a stamping incident from Alfredo Morelos but worse was to follow when he suffered a back injury in the first match of 2019 with Jeremy Toljan in place by the time that he was fit again.
Ralston has taken all the blows, the lows and occasional highs and helped his new club to a credible 1-1 draw last week at Aberdeen on his Saints debut.
Helping his current side out of second bottom place will be the priority tomorrow for Ralston which should go hand in hand with getting his career back on track.
So far Ralston has only started 29 league matches, spread across Queens Park, Celtic, Dundee United and St Johnstone, by the end of this season he could have matched that figure with his loan side.
Elsewhere today Ewan Henderson played for 65 minutes of Ross County’s 2-1 win at Motherwell, Stephen Welsh helped Morton to a 1-0 over Dundee, Ross Doohan helped Ayr to a 4-1 win at Alloa who substituted Robbie Deas at half-time.
Daniel Church was a 62nd minute substitute for East Fife in their 2-2 draw with Dumbarton while Jack Aitchison got the full game as Forest Green Rovers drew 0-0 at home to Stevenage.
