Celtic’s Ewan Henderson has been given a rave review by Dunfermline Athletic manager Stevie Crawford after netting his first ever goal in senior football.
Henderson is spending the rest of the campaign with the Championship club after only being given three substitute appearances at Parkhead this season.
The move has so far been extremely productive for the Lennoxtown academy graduate. Just under two weeks ago, Henderson managed to end what had been a 23-month assist drought in the senior game. And on Saturday, he managed to score his first professional goal in the 3-1 win over Queen of the South. You can see the goal for yourself below
And it appears he’s been impressing his loan boss Crawford as he racked up his third consecutive 90-minute appearance for the Pars. Touching on Henderson’s ability via the official Dunfermline Athletic website, Crawford said the following:
“That was Ewan Henderson’s first senior goal and he has made an impact since coming in. He is a boy who will want to take the ball in difficult circumstances.
“He will put his foot on it, he will take the ball and he is not frightened to play a pass to create opportunities for others.”
Celtic’s Ewan Henderson putting decent building blocks in place, but will he ever get his Parkhead chance?
It’s great to see that Henderson is on the right track. He went to Dunfermline in order to make an impression and get some minutes under his belt. He’s achieving both of those targets as things stand.
Of course, you can never predict what the long-term future holds. Just because Henderson is having a successful loan spell, it doesn’t mean he’ll be given a chance here next season. If only it was as simple as that.
But Henderson does have the kind of versatility that would please any manager. He can play anywhere across the attacking midfield positions. In addition to that, he has plenty of room at development given he’s only 21. It’s also easy to forget that he was also bigged up by Brendan Rodgers during the former manager’s time in charge. He once labelled Henderson a “huge talent” [The Herald].
So Henderson does have strings to his bow. But this loan spell was never about making it at Celtic as such. He’ll only manage to do that if he impresses the new manager in pre-season. What it was about was getting game-time into his legs and bagging some goals and assists if possible.
At the very least, the attacking midfielder will be able to progress to a bigger club than Dunfermline next season in order to continue his development. But with a contract that runs until the summer of 2022, he’ll have his eyes fixated on earning an extended deal.
As things stand at the moment, Ewan isn’t doing anything wrong with his new club.
In other news, Pat Bonner has delivered a grim verdict on John Kennedy as he urged a total overhaul of Celtic.
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