Jim Goodwin doubles down over Celtic defender

On the eve of having to do without Liam Scales, Jim Goodwin has backed his decision to sign the defender on loan. 

Scales helped Aberdeen to four clean sheets in the League Cup with Annan Athletic standing in their way of a place in the last eight. 

For reasons hard to fathom a small group of Aberdeen fans have decided to protest against taking players on loan from Celtic. 

Following Ryan Christie and Adam Montgomery, Scales is just the third Celtic player to move to Pittodrie on loan this century which hardly qualifies as overkill. 

In roughly the same period Tony Stokes, Liam Scales, Kris Commons, Efe Ambrose, Dylan McGeough and Scott Allan have gone on loan to Hibs and made a significant contribution to the club. 

Speaking to The Times, Goodwin said: 

I know our fans would rather he was our player but, if Liam Scales is the best left-sided centre half available to us, whether he’s on loan from Celtic or not, that is the one I’m going to go for.  

I’m willing to take that bit of heat from the fans from time to time. But I don’t want six or seven loan players in our team. I want 99 per cent of players here to be ours. 

I want this [Sunday’s game] to be an opportunity for us to put down a marker. I went there with St Mirren a couple of seasons ago and surprised everybody and got a really good result: beat them 2-1. There’s no reason why we can’t do the same again with this level of player that we’ve got. 

It seems a long long time since that St Mirren win at Celtic Park in January 2021. 

Last season Celtic had three narrow wins over Aberdeen and drew away to St Mirren in December- the last time that Goodwin faced the hoops.