Last night we played our first match of this pre-season.
Brendan’s kid played some of the game, in the midfield.
We won by a single goal, a well taken controlled shot from James Forrest.
The match was nothing special; the opposition played in what looked at some angles as if resembled a two bob Sevco home strip, especially when the meatier challenges were being thrown about. The team selection featured a high proportion of youth players, which was good to see, and Brendan will have had a chance to assess the chances of some of these kids making it.
Expect to see more of Tony Ralston, Jamie McCart and Calvin Miller in particular.
Brendan’s boy did okay in a revamped second half midfield, but the word from the camp is that he’s there only to get fitness prior to finding a club down south. This guy isn’t going to be our big signing before the qualifiers haha.
Overall this was a pretty standard pre-season game. There were no shocks, there was nothing too dramatic about it. Gerry McCulloch got on the pitch at the end to talk to the boss and Brendan seemed happy with what he’d seen.
He gave special praise to the kids, which they deserved.
Even as the match was finishing, word reached us that Celtic were favourites to sign the Ipswich youth player Kundai Benyu, who actually is highly regarded in England and stands a chance of cracking our first team sooner rather than later. But Brendan, although admitting interest, described him as “more of a project”.
Then he offered this tit-bit, to tease us with news of the real target.
“If I get the next signing in then I’ll be really happy,” he said. “It’ll give us real great power and strength and quality. Then we can push on and wait and see what becomes available.”
Intriguing or what? And the press has no idea at all who this player is.
It could be an exciting week ahead.