Virgil Van Dijk Was Celtic’s Last Truly World Class Performer. Who Will Be Our Next One?

I watched, as I’m sure most of us did, the game between Liverpool and Manchester City the other night with a great deal of admiration for the individual talents on display. Before the game, everyone who had an interest in the match was talking, it seemed to me, about just one player; the big City striker Erling Haaland, and not without good cause.

By the time the game finished, it was another two players who had stolen the show. Salah was excellent, and he took his goal brilliantly. But it was another player from the Anfield side who should have been at the centre of the headlines and that was big Virgil Van Dijk.

He had said before the match, in an extensive Sky interview, that he was looking forward to going up against Haaland. He played as if his life depended on it. But there were no crazy, rash tackles.

No rough-housing. Just quality versus quality … and Van Dijk won.

What a player we had on our hands when he was a Parkhead.

Was there any sign, then, that we were watching a football of true world class talent? Was there any indication that we were watching the man who would grow into being the best centre back in the world?

Some folk will say yes. People tell me often how they knew that he was way, way too good for Scottish football. My mate says he used to think, after games, that he performed at times like a dad playing football with his kids in the park, such was the ease with which he strolled through this division. I never thought of him in that way at all.

I believed he was an excellent central defender, for sure, but I would be lying if I said I had the slightest inkling we were watching a world beater. Does that mean we might be watching one of them at Celtic Park right now?

If so I think there are four possible candidates, and that’s incredible. I’m going to go through them one at a time, and you guys can tell me if you agree.

Cameron Carter Vickers

The first of them is Cameron Carter Vickers, who the more I see the more I think is head and shoulders above any defender we’ve had since Van Dijk and would be a contender for the bench on my Celtic select; right now, at central defence in that one, I have Van Dijk and Paul Elliot. Is he as good as Elliot?

Time will tell but he deserves to be mentioned in that company.

Carter Vickers is such an outstanding performer that I knew we would have to snap him up in the summer, although the transfer fee was massive, or he was going to be one of those guys we would be talking about in years to come with tremendous regret.

It is clear, as clear as it can be, that although we paid big money that we are certainly going to make a mammoth profit on him if and when he leaves the club. I think he could play anywhere.

I think our good fortune in taking this guy on loan when his career appeared to be going nowhere is the proof that someone inside the Parkhead operation knows their stuff.

We don’t know how good he could be yet; that’s the amazing thing about it.

I’m sure we all hoped that we’d get an extended run in Europe to see the big man test himself at that level, for this season anyway that’s not to be. But he looks a class apart in Scotland, that’s for sure.

Reo Hatate

I think Reo Hatate is still settling in as a Celtic player, but even so there is obviously a major footballer there and one who is blessed with a talent that could go all the way to the top.

People said this when he signed, people who know Japanese football and realised what we were getting.

The paltry transfer fee we paid for him is daylight robbery.

Remember Alan Hutton’s preposterous dismissal of him because he’s capable of playing in multiple positions? Yet Ange has settled him into one role, the central midfield berth.

But people forget that he’s capable on the left side of midfield, out on the wing and even, at times in his career, as a left wing-back. He’s already scored in huge games. He’s already proved that he’s one of the best players in Scotland and would get into the starting eleven across the city without breaking sweat.

The oddity is the disrespect shown to him by the Japanese national coach, but if Hatate gets his chance to play on the World Cup stage I expect him to show them what they’ve been missing and then we’ll get the interested parties chapping the door.

He’ll be at Celtic a while though, but it’s where he goes from here which would decide how far he rose in the game.

I think he’s a superstar in the making.

Liel Abada

There are probably a lot of fans who, knowing who else is almost certainly on this list, would have predicted that I’d take the Portuguese winger.

But to me, a choice between Abada and Jota ain’t no choice at all.

As much as I love our freewheeling talent with the pop star looks I would not have Liel Abada out of the Celtic team.

I think he’s a mind-boggling talent, with a penchant for scoring in massive games … he’s already got his Sevco Skelper badge and must absolutely love going up against them.

What makes him almost certain to be an elite footballer is that he’s come here and taken to the game like a duck to water at a very early age. And before he got here he was lighting up the league over in Israel for Maccabi Petah Tikva.

Liel Abada already has more than 20 Celtic goals.

He has more than 40 career goals in club football, at just 21. From the wing. Which is phenomenal. You can see a mile away that if he keeps developing he is going to be a smash anywhere that he plays the game.

Matt O’Riley

It’s not for nothing that we hear no end of nonsense about clubs looking at this guy.

The thing is, it’s clearly not all nonsense and it makes perfect sense that there are a lot of clubs interested in him, because Matt O’Riley is a major talent and without a shadow of a doubt one of the best up and coming midfielders in the UK.

That’s a bold statement but I believe it to be 100% accurate.

There will be interest in this guy – in the form of formal bids – next summer without a doubt. It is up to Celtic to resist those bids and give him every incentive to stay at the club for at least a couple more years.

If that means giving him a bumper new deal, well by then I am certain that he will have more than earned it. He could anchor our midfield for the next decade if only he could be convinced to stay at Celtic Park that long.

He had already proved himself as an advanced midfielder, in goals and assists and the way he strikes fear into defences.

But with the injury to McGregor it has been proved conclusively that he can also play in a defensive midfield role, which makes him an even more valuable asset. I would go as far as to say that this combination of skills already makes him a formidable challenger to Callum McGregor as the best football talent at the club.

He is going to be the complete player, and with his size and strength there will be no end of teams trying to prise him out of our grasp.

What he wants to do will decide that issue, of course, but there is no player at Parkhead who we should so do more, and move heaven and earth, to keep as long as possible.

If that proves impossible we will, at least, have the consolation of having a paid a pittance for a player who will net us a King’s ransom which I believe will top even what we got from Kieran Tierney. In this football city, where hyperbole is the order of the day, he is a genuine £30 million asset, and that’s what we should be expecting for him.

The Best Celtic Squad Since O’Neill’s?

All four of these guys are young. All four of them are brilliant footballers. What makes this an exciting time at Celtic is that they aren’t, by any means, our only bankable assets who are capable of growing into genuinely elite football players.

Jota, Juranovic and Kyogo could all fetch big sums as we know, and Giakoumakis?

Well, if no clubs are sniffing around him at the end of this season then there are serious issues with elite level scouting because he is as natural a finisher as I’ve seen.

But I chose those four, in particular, because of their age bracket and their potential to keep on getting better and better and better.

Amazingly, none of them were at Celtic Park at the start of last season; all are signings made under this regime, this manager, and two of them were actually brought here in January; which means they weren’t here this time last year.

There are already positive signs about Haksabanovic and Bernabei; both are young, both could develop into even better footballers than we already see.

I have never seen such value in a Celtic team, and that is a tribute to the entire coaching and scouting team. Our aim has never been this sure and on target. It’s a minor miracle.

And this is why I am so, so optimistic about this Celtic squad.

I firmly believe this is the best collection of players we’ve had at Celtic Park since the O’Neill team which had Lustig, Mjallby and Balde in defence, Petrov, Thompson, Lennon and Lambert in the midfield and Hartson, Sutton and Larsson up front. That was some side.

But this one might well be better, in time, if kept together and that’s the real challenge.