STUART ARMSTRONG and Gary Mackay-Steven have chosen wisely by joining Celtic rather than taking their chances south of the border.

That is the verdict of Ray McKinnon, the Brechin City boss and SPFL League One manager of the month for January, a man who is more than qualified to offer an opinion. This one-time United wonderkid was 22 years of age when he left Tannadice for Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest in return for £750,000, only to return north of the border two seasons later with no more than half a dozen first team appearances under his belt.

"I think it's a great decision to go to Celtic, especially for Armstrong," said McKinnon. "He is 22. If he went down to England to any of the big clubs like Arsenal or Chelsea, he would be in the reserves. There might be ten Stuart Armstrongs fighting alongside him.

"At Celtic, on the other hand, he can play week in week out for a team dominating possession, he will get time on the ball and a chance to shine. I think it will be great for his development, I really do. He has made the right call. Play there for the next two or three years, excel and then, when he is 24/25, that's the time to move down to the Premier League."

With Celtic and United scheduled to meet three times in the month of March - meetings which include a Scottish Cup quarter final and the League Cup final - some disgruntled Tannadice supporters unveiled a banner castigating chairman Stephen Thompson for selling out their hopes of silverware to their rivals. While McKinnon, a boyhood United fan, would have preferred them to have waited until the summer, he realises that the hard-headed pragmatic decision was to sell now. The Jim McLean era days of tying the best youth players down for lengthy contracts is long gone, while Ryan Dow is one man ready to fill the void.

"Do you think he [Armstrong] had a choice?" said McKinnon. "I didn't! I had 11 years - seven years with a four year option! But it was 'you're going' - that was it! I imagine it was something he couldn't turn down - salary, everything about it.

"Being a United boy growing up, you'd probably like to have kept the two of them until the end of the season, taken the hit on Mackay-Steven and maybe taken £1.5m for Armstrong in the summer.," he added. "It's difficult - your business sense tells you to take the money now, trophy sense says not to. But anything can happen. He might get into the last year of his contract and sit it out and then you get nothing.

"We tried to get Ryan Dow on loan just before he made the first team. He was superb on Sunday and could be the next one to move if he gets a regular game. He's a real talent. We were really close to getting him but he suddenly got one game in the first team and never looked back."