The Celtic teenager has been out since late 2017 after sustaining a knee injury and looked impressive before his stint on the side lines.
Celtic confirmed via their official Twitter account that teenage youth academy graduate Anthony Ralston made his competitive return from injury last night for the under-20 side.
The Hoops youngsters took on St Johnstone at Lennoxtown and ran out eventual 3-0 victors, in a dominant performance which saw the side progress in the SFA Youth Cup.
Given Celtic’s current defensive injury crisis, the return of young Ralston will be welcomed by Brendan Rodgers and, with veteran Swede Mikael Lustig currently somewhat out of favour, the 19-year-old has a great chance of stepping up and claiming the right-back spot for his own.
Although only one year older than Ralston, the Celtic youngster has a great role model in fellow full-back Kieran Tierney.
Tierney is the perfect example of an academy product that has hit the ground running in his professional career, pushing out an existing mainstay in the team and claiming a starting spot for himself.
Ralston should be aiming to emulate the likes of Tierney, whose scintillating form and dedicated performances meant Ronny Deila and Brendan Rodgers were simply unable to select Emilio Izaguirre in place of him, despite nearly 250 Celtic games under the latter’s belt.
The Scotland under-21 international signed a new four-and-a-half year deal with Celtic while out injured in late December, joining the likes of Callum McGregor, James Forrest and, of course, Tierney as academy graduates turned genuine first-team squad members.
Ralston quickly became a fan favourite in the first half of the season following his solid displays, topped off by a fiery performance against PSG in which he riled Neymar so much so that the Brazilian declined to shake his hand following the final whistle.
As reported by the Daily Record, Ralston was quoted back in December following the signing of his new contract saying: “For 2018, I just want to get my head down, work hard to get back to full fitness and kick on with the football.”
With fitness regained, the youngster may have a huge role to play in Celtic’s season run-in, and will be racing to get match fit to put his hand up for selection next week in the Europa League.
His PSG performance proved he is not the type to shy away from the big occasion so it will be interesting to see what comes of the Lustig-Ralston right-back rivalry in the coming months.
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