Celtic loan stars Ryan Christie and Lewis Morgan go head to head when Aberdeen meet St Mirren this weekend.
This weekend Aberdeen and St Mirren go head to head in the Scottish Cup fourth round when the two meet at Pittodrie on Saturday.
This is the first time that Celtic’s Ryan Christie, currently on loan at Aberdeen, and Celtic’s Lewis Morgan, temporarily playing for St Mirren will face each other.
As attacking midfielders, and both being nearly the same age, when the two return to their parent club come the end of the season they may well be vying for the same spot in Brendan Rodgers’ squad.
Christie has failed to make much of an impact at Celtic since joining from Inverness CT in 2015. He has made only 13 appearances for the Hoops and has been loaned out three times: twice to Aberdeen and once to former club Inverness.
Morgan is yet to earn his Celtic debut, having only recently secured a £300,000 (BBC) move from St Mirren earlier this month. Following the completion of his switch, Celtic immediately sent him back to the Saints on loan to help them try to secure promotion to the top flight.
Former St Mirren assistant Davie Farrell has tipped Morgan to surpass Christie in Celtic’s pecking order, pointing to the youngster’s pace advantage as the defining factor.
“I think the reason Ryan Christie doesn’t get in [the Celtic squad] is because he doesn’t have that extra burst of pace,” Farrell explained, as reported in The Scotsman.
“Brendan Rodgers is well documented in saying that every player in the Celtic team has to be able to run. Until Ryan perhaps gets Lewis Morgan’s pace, then he might never get himself a place in Celtic’s first team.”
One thing is for certain and that is that both loan players have done very well this season. Christie is arguably the Dons’ number one player and is clearly valued by Derek McInnes who recently spoke of his desire to retain his services beyond his current loan deal.
Morgan too has been mightily impressive, albeit having played in the Championship, but has scored 13 goals so far this season nonetheless.
Whatever anybody says, there is no doubt that a place in next season’s Celtic squad will be on their minds come Saturday, with both youngsters no doubt hoping to get one over their counterpart in the hope of impressing Rodgers.
It will be interesting to see who comes out on top in this little intra-club match up.
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