Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers sold Gary Mackay-Steven last summer.
Former Dundee United boss Peter Houston has claimed to The Scottish Herald that Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers “really admired” Gary Mackay-Steven, who he sold last summer.
Mackay-Steven arrived at Celtic this month three years ago for a fee of £250,000 but struggled to reproduce the form that he showed at Tannadice under Houston.
The 27-year-old winger was signed by Ronny Deila but only managed eight Premiership games under Rodgers last season as the Hoops won an unprecedented invincible treble.
Consequently, the Northern Irishman moved him on last summer after signing Jonny Hayes from Aberdeen, who signed Mackay-Steven as his replacement.
And lately the one-time Scotland international has showed signs of his blistering best, grabbing a hat-trick against Hibernian last month, before scoring a wonder goal in Saturday’s Scottish Cup win over St Mirren.
Houston knows Mackay-Steven better than most and claims that the attacker is not as immune to criticism as a Celtic player needs to be when it comes to the pressure of impressing 60,000 fans every week.
“I spoke to Brendan Rodgers when I was up there at Celtic and he really admired GMS,” he said to The Scottish Herald. “The problem was he wasn’t as consistent as he needed to be. The criticism was just too much for him. He didn’t like criticism. If you aren’t doing well at Celtic there are 60,000 people criticising you.
“You have to put an arm around him. He needs encouragement rather than criticism. When he signed for us he was a wee bit overawed.
“He thought he shouldn’t be out on that pitch. I just tried to give him the words of encouragement that he needed to hear, I just told him he could do the business and mess with defenders.”
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