Celtic have Patrick Roberts on loan from Manchester City.
Re-signing Patrick Roberts was Celtic’s top priority in the summer after 18 months on loan at the club.
Roberts played a key role for the side last season, and eventually a compromise was struck with Manchester City for him to join on loan for another year.
This week Roberts suffered another injury, forced off early in their draw against Motherwell.
It was another blow to the attacker, who has already missed time this season due to injuries.
He has scored once, and provided three assists, steady, but unspectacular by his standards.
Last season Roberts also started slowly, but ended the season in terrific form.
In his final eight league games of 2016/17, Roberts scored 6 times and provided 8 assists.
It was a staggering return, and one Celtic would have loved him to continue at the beginning of this season.
Perhaps that form was simply unsustainable, and there has been some injury bad luck involved this season, with it not quite clicking as it did so well at the end of last season.
Roberts is being judged by very high standards, simply because of the extra high level it will take for him to reach to break into Pep Guardiola’s relentless Manchester City team.
He needed to start this season as he finished the last, but so far the return has been disappointing, and he needs to kick on when he returns to action.
Instead of trying to kick on, Roberts’ aims right now are simply to try and recapture last season’s form, when he really needs to be showing a marked improvement year on year.
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