‘Real personality’ ‘great kid’ ‘brilliant quality’ McGregor gives his verdict on Daniel Kelly

Often when a young player breaks into the first team the reaction is to gently keep things as low key as possible.

It doesn’t take much to create headlines and attention, in a world of social media there are more pitfalls than ever.

Daniel Kelly joined the Celtic first team for the pre-season trips to Portugal and Japan but spent the first half of the season playing in the Lowland League for the B team.

After the winter break he got a 20 minute appearance against Buckie Thistle then was retained on the bench but unused as Celtic toiled to hit form, in recent matches Kelly has looked on as peers David Watson and Lennon Miller earned acclaim.

Last night Kelly got 45 minutes, quickly he looked at ease, in the 63rd minute he scored a goal that required confidence, technique and perhaps something extra. The something that makes experienced team-mates sit up and take notice.

Brilliant, probably  over the time I have been here we keep trying to add the young players from getting them into the first team from the academy. This guy has been outstanding since he came into the group.

He has real personality, brilliant quality, great kid, wants to learn, work as hard as they can. all these attributes. It’s so important if you want to have a career here, he’s got that in spades. When you come on you need to take your chance and that’s exactly what he did, brilliant finish as well.

The challenge is to keep going, keep wanting more. Like I said the group really love him in terms of his personality, the way that he plays and the way that he trains. So we just need more of that from him.

Odin Thiago Holm failed to make the bench last night, with Paulo Bernardo left unused it seems that Rodgers recognises the same qualities as his captain as he makes a pathway for the teenager.