Brendan Rodgers was full of praise for Ryan Christie’s following Celtic’s League Cup semi-final victory.
Christie was the star of the show against Hearts. After coming on for Olivier Ntcham at the break, the midfielder won the penalty that allowed Scott Sinclair to break the deadlock, inadvertently provided the assist for the Hoops’ second and rounded off the victory in style with a goal of his own.
His display certainly hints that Sunday could prove to be a turning point in the youngster’s Parkhead career. And after the game, Rodgers – in comments reported by BBC Sport – was full of praise for Christie.
Hartson has suggested that he was intrigued by the manager’s comments and believes his praise hints that Christie is set to enjoy a much more important role over the coming months.
“It was interesting to hear the manager go out his way to praise Ryan. Brendan is intelligent in his interviews and when he sung the praises of Ryan Christie, there was a point to that,” he told the Evening Times. “He rarely singles out individuals but was gushing over the lad from Inverness, saying he had a goal in him and that he drove on his team.
“Ryan is clearly rated and sometimes players mature later than others. I actually thought he did okay in Leipzig. Sure, it was a difficult night but Ryan did some nice things. I’ve a feeling the Celtic fans will see a lot more of him from now on.”
If Christie performs somewhere near the level that he was at at the weekend, then Celtic supporters will certainly have no issue with seeing him feature much more often.
There was a period between late August and the start of October when Celtic were struggling to score the goals that put games to bed, but several of their attacking players appear to have hit form at exactly the same time – and Christie is most definitely one of those.
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