Celtic defender Anthony Ralson and reported Tottenham Hotspur and Everton target was scouted by Premier League clubs, says his former manager.
Queen’s Park manager Gus McPherson has told The Scotsman that Premier League clubs scouted Celtic youngster Anthony Ralston during his loan with the Spiders.
The 18-year-old defender enjoyed the verbal and physical jousting with Neymar during Paris Saint-Germain’s 5-0 thumping of Celtic in the Champions League this week.
Neymar, who completed a £200 million transfer to Paris from Barcelona this past summer, refused to shake hands or swap shirts with the Scottish youngster at full time.
Brushing shoulders with that kind of star power is quite a contrast to where Ralston was during the 2015-16 campaign, where he had a 10-match loan stint at Lesser Hampden.
Even as a 16-year-old, McPherson claims he knew that Ralston had an abundance of talent to match his talk, and revealed to The Scotsman that top-flight clubs from down South had travelled up to watch him play on occasions.
He said: “I saw the pictures with him and Neymar and heard that he had wound Neymar up. That didn’t surprise me as Anthony would not get fazed by reputations, as he showed here.
“I had not seen him play but he came to Lesser Hampden on a Thursday night for training. He walked into my office and as casually as you like said: ‘Hi, I am Anthony. I am here to play for Queen’s Park.
“He went on to play another ten games for us and scored his first senior goal at Stirling Albion. He did that well that English Premiership clubs were coming to our games to watch him.” “We wanted to keep him for the second half of the season but Celtic wanted him for their first team pool by then. He was great for us but we were great for him as well as he gained a lot from that spell.”
Ralston has been on Celtic’s books since the age of 11 and might well be the next best thing to progress through the club’s ranks since Kieran Tierney, now a full Scotland international.
It was reported by ESPN earlier this month that he had interested Everton and Tottenham Hotspur from the Premier League.
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