Luke McCowan will continue his journey as a Celtic player after signing a new contract.
Alongside veteran James Forrest and centre-back Liam Scales, the trio have extended their stays at Celtic, with McCowan signing until 2028, with an option to extend it for a further year.
As McCowan has put pen to paper, Martin O’Neill has shared that the versatile midfielder wants more game time in the famous green and white colours.
“I think he has done really well again for us,” said O’Neill. “Like anything else, he would like to start more games if he could. But he has been excellent.”
Did Luke McCowan deserve a new contract at Celtic?
Luke McCowan’s role under Martin O’Neill at Celtic
McCowan signed for Celtic in 2024 from Dundee, and since then, he has worked under Brendan Rodgers, Wilfried Nancy, and O’Neill twice.
It’s not the norm for a Celtic player of this era to work under so many managers, but there has been a common theme throughout, and that’s McCowan being a bench player.
But O’Neill told his pre-match press conference, ahead of Celtic’s clash against Falkirk on Saturday evening to kick off the post-split fixtures, that McCowan has provided the Hoops with ‘a new look’ when asked to play different roles.
“I think he has done really well again for us,” said O’Neill. “Like anything else, he would like to start more games if he could. But he has been excellent.
“The first spell that I had, he played wide right-hand side at times, when Yang was playing the left. That’s a position he certainly wasn’t accustomed to, but he dug in and played it well. He is essentially a midfield player at the end of it all.
“I think playing out there gave him a new look at the game as well. Very pleased for him. Again, he’s a really nice lad. He came on. Funnily enough, the goal that he scores (in the Scottish Cup semi-final), which was quickly after Iheanacho’s goal, I just felt that he would put it in the net.”
McCowan’s season at Celtic in stats
McCowan’s standout moment this season came in Germany when he opened the scoring inside a minute during Celtic’s Europa League win in Stuttgart.
The downside to that is that Celtic would get booted out of the Europa League, but it provided O’Neill with a glimpse of what McCowan is capable of.
Everything and anything has gone wrong this season, and it has helped nobody’s cause, no more so than McCowan, who you sense still hasn’t taken a proper step forward in the colours of his boyhood club.
- Premiership games: 28
- Starts: 11
- Minutes per game: 42
- Total minutes played: 1169
- Europa League games: 4
- Starts: 2
- Minutes per game: 41
- Total minutes played: 162
- League Cup games: 3
- Starts: 1
- Minutes per game: 42
- Total minutes played: 127
- Scottish Cup games: 4
- Starts: 2
- Minutes per game: 61
- Total minutes played: 244
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