Last night, Stuart Armstrong played in a Scotland side that was packed with Celtic players and just as he has for our club this season, he stood out a mile with a performance that was at times dynamic, at others subtle, but never short of excellent.
Today the rave reviews are pouring in.
The curmudgeonly Davie Provan ranks it as the best debut he’s seen from a Scotland player in years. I agree, it was, although it was in danger of being completely overshadowed by the performance of young Kieran Tierney, who I thought was superb and showed a maturity beyond his years.
Armstrong is a player of the highest quality. I’ve been writing about this kid from way before he pulled on the Hoops. He was captain of the Scotland Under 21 team before signing for Celtic and was always likely to go on to represent his country in many a competitive game. Dundee United gave him his competitive debut in 2010 … and when you think he’s only 24 that seems an extraordinary fact. He made 12 appearances in that campaign.
I was over the moon when we signed him. In fact, six days before we made our opening bid I had written an article for this site on Buying Scottish where I basically begged Ronny and the board to get the fingers out and buy “the next big thing.”
Over the last two and a bit years, Stuart has grown into the team and now looks every bit as indispensable as we’d hoped. The current terms of his deal bind him to the club only as far as next year; I cannot imagine he wants to go though.
He wants to stay and become a club legend and perhaps even the next Celtic captain.
We have a long history, at Celtic Park, of rewarding those players who up their game and prove they can cut it. It would be a fine time to hand this kid a whopping five year deal which commits him to us and us to him way into the future.
Other Celtic blogs have called for this today; I am pleased to add this site to the growing number of them. He has earned it.
There’s no immediate need to panic over this; Stuart wants to stay and Brendan certainly wants to keep him.
But rumours suggest that a long term contract has been offered and sits unsigned. The two parties can’t be far apart, or there would be murmurs in the papers. It’s time to bridge whatever the gap is and get this one nailed down.
And if the board fancies a better deal, and an extended contract, for Moussa whilst they are it I really don’t think anybody would complain too much!