Stephen Craigan has stated that Celtic have spent a lot of time working on Conor Hazard – making him believe that the youngster could be the club’s number one in the future.
Hazard has come through the ranks at Lennoxtown and has even made a senior appearance for the Hoops – a 2-0 win against Partick Thistle back in 2017. But since then the youngster has been forced to go out on loan to the likes of Falkirk, Dundee, and Partick respectively in order to gain first-team football.
This season, the 22-year-old is still playing third-fiddle to both Vasilis Barkas and Scott Bain in the pecking order. He’s managed five appearances on the bench, but it’s difficult to see a route though to being first-choice.
Yet Craigan believes the club has invested plenty of effort and time into Hazard, and that he could very well still be our long-term shot-stopper.
As quoted by the Daily Record, Craigan said: “He’s had a taste of the full international side too, coming on as a sub against Costa Rica in 2018. That shows he is making enough waves and people in the Northern Irish set-up are interested in watching his developments.
“Celtic have invested a lot of time in him which makes you think he might become number one eventually. I saw him playing for Celtic U20s a couple of years ago against Motherwell and he was coming out and dominating his box, looking physically imposing.
“His aggression coming for crosses caught my eye. The coaching at Celtic is clearly paying off in terms of his timing, positioning and the fundamentals of goalkeeping. But only Stevie Woods, Neil and his coaching staff will know when he is ready to make the step into the first team.”
November report on Hazard didn’t paint the best picture
Whilst this is all nice and positive from Craigan, a report from the Courier in November didn’t paint the greatest picture regarding his long-term future at Celtic Park.
The newspaper stated that Celtic pulled the plug on another loan move to Dundee in the summer. This was said to be down to the fact that Hazard himself rejected a new deal at Parkhead.
This is likely down to a lack of game-time. The Northern Ireland international spoke in the Belfast Telegraph back in September and, when asked about his chances of breaking into the NI senior set-up, Hazard said: “I need to play games for me to be even considered to go to that level. I need to be playing week in, week out to get that exposure to first-team football.”
He isn’t going to get that first-team exposure at Celtic anytime soon. That’s just the brutal reality of this 10-in-a-row season. Lennon may have chopped and changed between Bain and Barkas this season, but giving a Lennoxtown youngster a run always seemed unlikely.
It would’ve been ideal to get him out on loan this season, but with Ross Doohan currently with Ross County for the season, it just wasn’t right or Celtic to let Hazard go too.
So we’ll see what the long-term future holds for the young shot-stopper. But to say it’s more likely than not that he’ll one day be our number one now feels more optimistic than anything.
In other news, one exciting January target has been bigged up by two English managers.
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