The Celtic fans all know how special a player midfielder, Matt O’Riley, is for the club.
The amount of column inches he has gotten on this site alone makes TBR Celtic look like a fan page for the Danish u21 international.
But with O’Riley now well into his second season at Celtic, it’s hard to believe he is only 22 when you look at how maturely he plays the game.
And it seems that it was his learning experiences as a youngster at international youth level that is to thank for that. That’s according to Dan Micchice who is the Player Development lead coach at Everton.
Micchice recalls how O’Riley was pitted with some of England’s best talents as 16 and how the Celtic midfielder outshone the likes of Manchester City’s, Phil Foden.
Micchice said [The Herald Sport pullout print edition page 6], “Russell Martin deserves a lot of credit for where Matt is now as he took him to MK Dons and gave him the platform to play regular first-team football.
“As we all know, you can have potential but until somebody actually gives you that chance to play then you will never know how good they really are.
“When I had Matt at under-16 level with England these youngsters all have potential. Fulfilling that potential is another thing altogether. In our England group, he was alongside the likes of Jayden Sancho and Phil Foden and he more than held his own in that exalted company.
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“I remember a game Matt played against Holland in France and he was absolutely exceptional. He was in the midfield alongside Oliver Skipp who is at Tottenham now as well as Callum Hudson-Odoi. Foden was on the right and Sancho was on the left and Matt controlled the game.
“At those age groups with England you want to see youngsters make the most of their talent and it is wonderful seeing the likes of Matt perform so well on that stage.”
So it seems that learning alongside the likes of Foden and Hudson-Odoi is the reason that Celtic have such a talented player on their hands.
Which begs the question, how did O’Riley manage to slip through the net of clubs like Fulham when it was clear that he had bags of talent early on in his career?
Their loss is Celtic’s gain and Brendan Rodgers will certainly not be complaining as O’Riley looks like he is set to become one of the best players at the club by a long distance.
In other news, ‘Exemplary’… Michael Stewart says Celtic have a ‘wonderful footballer’ after watching Scotland last night