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Two wasted years- International boss delivers brutal verdict on young Celt

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Ireland u-21 boss Jim Crawford has claimed that Luca Connell has wasted two years of his career with Celtic.

In the summer of 2019 the teenager was signed by Celtic to something of a fanfare after making a dozen Championship appearances for Bolton and getting called into the senior Ireland squad at the age of 17.

Connell found the Celtic midfield well stocked with Scott Brown, Callum McGregor and Ryan Christie keeping Olivier Ntcham, Tom Rogic and Nir Bitton on the sidelines.

The new bhoy had to settle for occasional Reserve team appearances before his debut season came to a halt in March due to Lockdown.

Ireland had high hopes for the Liverpool born midfielder, after a loan stint he is back with their u-21 squad with Crawford blunt as he told the Irish Independent about the lost years in Connell’s career.

I have had a conversation with him already, I told him I was a bit concerned with him coming into the last camp.

Conor Coventry had been promoted to the senior team and we brought in Luca: he hadn’t been playing much, he’d just made his debut for Queens Park on the Saturday and had a fantastic performance against Wales, to show that ability and potential that he has.

So we sat down and spoke about it, that he does need to be playing first team football week-in week-out as he has the ability. He had a taste when Mick McCarthy brought him in with the senior team and in fairness to him he’s open, he understands.

He is looking forward to coming to Spain, he wants to kick on this year at Celtic, he understands that if things don’t, it’s about him having a discussion with the powers that be at Celtic to see where his best option is, to go out on loan or what have you.

He’s another intelligent fella, he knows where he’s at, he knows he needs to be playing and it’s that two seasons of going off the radar which gave him time to reflect and say no, this is not what I am about, as I feel it is two years wasted. But for him to come in and put in a performance like that against Wales shows the amount of potential that Luca has

Ireland will face Denmark, Australia and Switzerland in a series of friendlies in Marbella, Lee O’Connor is also in the squad.

In recent years Celtic have signed a number of young prospects from English football but only Jeremie Frimpong has started a first team match.

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