A very nice wee bite-sized good news story from inside the Celtic camp today, one that makes me smile because it’s portentous and nips a lot of newspaper cobblers in the bud. Scott Bain has told Brendan Rodgers that he wants to stay at Celtic Park.
As I said in a headline some weeks ago, “Scott Bain’s future will be at Celtic Park if he wants it to be, and he does.”
Ponder for a moment how good that is.
He does have options elsewhere, and those options will involve guaranteed first team football.
He won’t get that with us.
There are no guarantees at a club like Celtic except for that you’ll need to work hard to stay ahead. I like it when a player, knowing that, signs on the dotted line; it implies self-confidence. It suggests that this is someone who’s up for a challenge and is determined to succeed.
Now, confidence itself isn’t enough.
We know that. Scott Allan believed he could crack the first team here. Every player who arrives has to know that there are others, in the team already, who have the advantage and when you watch Craig Gordon pull off those miracle saves at the weekend you can see how tough it will be for young Bain.
But he does have the talent to make it here.
He has been on Celtic’s short-list for a couple of years, and has acquitted himself well in the side so far. He can be a success, and next season will see demands on our team which make this campaign seem modest by comparison. There’s that ugly extra two matches in the Champions League for a start.
Across the city they are losing young footballers.
Here we have a guy with offers on the table from elsewhere and a media virtually shrieking at him that for his own good he should take one of them. But he knows what he wants and he knows where he’s best at. He knows opportunities will come and he thinks he’s good enough to seize them when they do.
More than anything else, this is a vote of confidence in where we’re headed as a club. What Phil called “succession planning” is already in high gear at Celtic Park, and as Craig Gordon’s career winds down along with others, Brendan and the coaching staff are putting the building blocks in place for how the club will look in three years or five.
That’s what big clubs do. And Bain believes in that vision and he wants to be part of it.
That’s why he’s made this decision.
That’s why he’ll be a Celtic player next season.
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