EOGHAN O’CONNELL says he was won over by the lofty ambitions of Lee Clark after swapping Celtic for Bury.
The 21-year-old has agreed a three-year deal with the Skybet League 1 side after departing Parkhead in search of first-team football.
O’Connell made seven appearances for Celtic last season, including a Champions League cameo in the 7-0 defeat against Barcelona, and garnered praise from boss Brendan Rodgers for some assured showings.
However, he slipped behind the likes of Jozo Simunovic, Erik Sviatchenko and Kolo Toure in the Parkhead pecking order and spent the second half of the campaign on loan at Walsall, where he impressed in his 17 outings.
Although the Midlands club were keen to make the move permanent, O’Connell was sold on Bury by former Kilmarnock gaffer Clark.
“When I spoke to the manager [Clark] and saw the squad he was building, it was impressive,” said O’Connell.
“He said to me he wants to have a right go at promotion this year and I just wanted to be part of that. This is a great base to really kick-start my career now. The training ground is very impressive so we have not got any excuses. I enjoyed my time at Celtic but struggled to get regular playing time. Sometimes these things happen in football.”
And the Irishman insists he does not harbour any resentment after failing to make the grade north of the border.
O’Connell added: “I had a brilliant time up there and made some great friends. I wish them all the best.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here