Adam Idah continues to grow as a player. Celtic will reap the benefits of that.

I thought that Adam Idah’s comments in the aftermath of the Irish game last night were absolutely spot on.

This is a guy who’s had to endure an almost unbelievable level of criticism for his performances for both Celtic and Ireland. But this is a player who is coming into his own, little by little, bit by bit, and proving what a talent he is.

Idah has got 14 goals this season in a Celtic shirt. That’s actually a very decent return for a striker who’s just making his name—especially one who hasn’t been a first-choice player for the club. He is capable, though, and we all know it.

He is capable of stepping up and doing a job for us.

The only reason we don’t see more of him in the team is the outstanding performances of Daizen Maeda since Kyogo left in January.

He doesn’t have to carry the heavyweight burden of that transfer fee. That weight was never his to carry. It’s not his cross to bear.

He’s not the one who paid the £9 million—our board of directors did. And they did so because the manager finally forced their hand on it. They would have dragged their feet for even more months, and the price we paid would have been even higher had we left it until the last week of the window before trying to get the business done.

Because the board of directors were forced to pay more for Idah than we would have if we’d just negotiated in good faith and got him at the start of the window—as everyone was urging us to do—he now has to carry that transfer fee around with him. That’s not fair to the player, nor does it justify the criticism that he’s not worth it.

Adam’s finest hour in a Celtic shirt came with his cup final goal last season against the Ibrox club. That proves he can play on the big stage, in the big games, when it matters. A last-minute winner in a Glasgow derby and a cup final—you cannot ask for more complete verification that a player has what it takes than that.

But I actually think his finest performance, by a considerable distance, was the one he put in south of the border against Aston Villa in the Champions League.

That night, as far as I’m concerned, we saw the £9 million footballer—a footballer who was worth that kind of money, a footballer who could justify that kind of transfer fee… not that he has to.

That night, he looked like a Premiership-level footballer. That’s two goals in the Champions League against a top team. He got three overall in the competition, which is a very decent return for the second-string striker.

He’s got enough goals this season to make it his most successful one in his career so far. He’s 24 years old and has already scored more goals for Celtic in one and a half campaigns than he did during his entire time at Norwich. This is a guy who is getting better and better, and now he’s started to strut his stuff on the national stage. He now has five international goals for Ireland, and there will be more.

I can’t ask the media to get off this guy’s back. They won’t. But I would ask some of our fans to try and show the boy some support.

He’s going to have to be a very big player for us next season, and he is perfectly capable of doing so. He didn’t just have a pop at his critics last night; he also said that Brendan Rodgers has restored his love for football. That’s a player talking who’s had a very tough time of it at his former club.

Before this season ends, I expect him to hit 20 goals.

There are enough games left for him to get there, and if he does, I trust that some of the people who have been criticising him have the good grace to admit that they were wrong.

We are seeing the emergence of a very big player for us.

If it’s taken longer than some people would have liked, I should think they’d benefit from being a bit more patient in future.