I have no doubts that Lewis Morgan will be able to handle the step up to Celtic.

He is obviously an exciting talent on the field, but he impressed me just as much away from the pitch when I played with him at St Mirren. He had only just broken into the first team picture and moved into our dressing room, and he was a really quiet, conscientious person by his character. He’s not loud, he’s not a show-off, and he just gets on with his work. That’s quite uncommon to have a nice, quiet boy in the changing room, but that’s how I would describe him.

He’s extraordinarily level-headed for one so young, and he doesn’t seem to let anything faze him or bother him.

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Lewis is 21 now, and when I moved to Rangers, I had just turned 23. I remember the build up to going in there for the first time, and for want of a better phrase, you are bricking it, really.

You are going into a room full of superstars. I had the likes of Ronald De Boer, Claudio Caniggia, Lorenzo Amoruso, Arthur Numan and all these boys, so it is daunting. Lewis will deal with that no problem though. I don’t think it will bother him.

It will help that there are a lot of Scottish boys there to help him settle in. It certainly helped me at Rangers. I get the impression that Scott Brown is absolutely phenomenal as a captain when it comes to welcoming new players to the club.

On the pitch, Lewis has both the talent and the athleticism to do well. He was very slight when he first came through at St Mirren, but he dedicated himself to becoming a better athlete, and that is vital in modern-day football. If you are going to have aspirations to move to a bigger club as he has done with Celtic, then it’s not all about ability, you need that athleticism to match it because of the pace of the game and everyone else getting fitter and stronger.

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It is full credit to him that he has done that, because a lot of younger players wouldn’t have. If things are going well, you can get into the habit of not bothering with the gym or doing extra work, but he’s worked hard to make himself the best that he can be.

I’ve watched him a few times this season, and the thing that has impressed me most has been his consistency, particularly for a wide player. In previous seasons, he would maybe flit in and out, do something incredibly good and then you might not see him for a week or two. This season he has brought that consistency of performance level on a weekly basis, and that’s why he’s got his move to Celtic.

Before that though, it is vital for St Mirren that he will be allowed to go back to the club on loan for the rest of the season. They are on the cusp of returning to the Premiership, and that would be an unbelievable achievement. To do that though, I believe it is so important for Lewis to be part of the squad.

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He’s had a massive impact this season, and I think that he especially will be desperate to come back and help St Mirren get promoted, almost as something of a parting gift for his development at the club.

It is a great move for Lewis, but St Mirren have a real big opportunity to get back to the big time, and they are in a two-horse race for me now in the Championship with Dundee United. Without Lewis, I don’t think St Mirren are the same team, so it’s important that he comes back and focuses on getting St Mirren promotion.

Because he is coming back, he probably won’t feel like a Celtic player at first, at least until he gets his first pay packet, but I think it will give him an extra swagger.

Moving forward to the summer, the only concern would be that other players that have gone to Celtic from Scottish clubs of late like Scott Allan, Ryan Christie and Jonny Hayes have found it difficult to establish themselves.

I hope that he doesn’t go there and disappear, and the ironic thing is that he is the sort of player that Celtic could probably be doing with right now.

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If you watched them against Rangers last weekend, you saw that not all of their players in the final third are firing on all cylinders, and with Jonny Hayes and Patrick Roberts being injured, Lewis would bring a freshness to the Celtic attack that has just gone off the boil a bit. A lot of Celtic fans I would imagine would be thinking that they could really use him at the moment.

From St Mirren’s point of view, he will obviously be a huge miss when he does go, but thanks to the work being done at the academy there, life will go on.

You can go back to John McGinn moving on to Hibs, Kenny McLean going to Aberdeen, Kyle McAllister going to Derby and Stevie Mallan going to Barnsley. Their academy is really bearing fruit in terms of producing players that not only do the club a turn on the pitch, but are saleable assets too. Kyle Magennis will be the next one to watch out for.

All credit to them.