EVEN a footballer with all the talent in the world can look like a Sunday pub league player with a dodgy ankle when his confidence has gone.
Equally, an average footballer can appear Zidane-like given enough pats on the back and warm words of encouragement. That’s human beings for you.
Stuart Armstrong last season was most definitely in the former category. The player who made everything look easy at Dundee United seemed incapable of doing two things right in a row. It was difficult to watch.
Former Celtic player Simon Donnelly was first-team coach at Tannadice when Armstrong began to make a name for himself. His form won him a move to Celtic which started well and is now at the stage in which he’s hardly put a foot wrong.
It was the bit in the middle which proved sticky and Donnelly could see that is former player was suffering and knew why.
Donnelly said: “Stuart has been different class. He’s taken confidence from the manager showing belief in him and, speaking from experience, there’s no better feeling. Last season he’d be starting games and then looking towards the dug-out after 55-60 minutes, expecting his number to be held up.
“That affects your performance but he’s gone from strength to strength under Brendan Rodgers, for Celtic and now for Scotland as well.
“It’s possible that he might not still have been at Celtic if Brendan hadn’t come in. When he and Gary Mackay-Steven went to Celtic, I thought they would both succeed. They made an immediate impact when they went there but maybe the realisation of just how big a club Celtic is got to them. Whatever the reason, it didn’t work out for them last season.
“Celtic, as a team, were a bit stale then but they’ve got their style and their swagger back and Stuart’s one of their main players. I go back to the League Cup semi-final against Rangers when he and Leigh Griffiths came off the bench and changed the game. He hasn’t looked back since then.”
Read more: Brendan Rodgers: Nobody will leave Celtic and we will buy before the Champions League qualifiers
The feeling in Scottish football is that more often than not a good, young player will be be soon enough attracted to the money and, it must be said, glamour of the English Premiership.
Rodgers has said often enough that his 25-year-old midfielder is good enough to cut it south of the border but as Donnelly, a stylish player who won everything with Celtic, knows all too well there are few better places to play your football than Celtic Park.
He said: “Brendan touched on it last week – you need to appreciate what you have. Stuart is playing in a side which is going for a treble while trying to achieve something that’s never been done before by going through the entire domestic season unbeaten.
“He’s now part of the Scotland set-up and was probably the best player on the park in his debut so Stuart should just focus on where he is now and keep developing.
"Further down the line, if he moves down south then it would need to be to one of the top clubs. I wouldn’t see leaving Celtic to join a mid-table Premier League club as being progress.
“But he could certainly succeed there. He could handle it, as he proved in the two Champions League games against Manchester City, when he was immense.
“I look back now, at when I left Celtic to join Sheffield Wednesday in 1999 and, being honest, I never worked alongside the same calibre of player as I did at Parkhead ever again. That’s a regret, even though I enjoyed the rest of my career and I have great memories from every club I played for.
“Kenny Dalglish came in just after I left. He’d been my hero and it would have been great to work with him and with Martin O’Neill but you can’t live your life regretting decisions.”
Simon Donnelly was speaking at a William Hill media event. William Hill is the proud sponsor of the Scottish Cup
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