The resurgence of Liam Scales for Celtic in recent weeks has been great to see.
After being thrown into the limelight following a spate of central defensive injuries, the 25-year-old has performed admirably in some challenging environments.
Scales won plaudits, and the man of the match award, for his part in our derby win over Rangers at the start of the month. He was part of a Celtic defence that chalked up three straight clean sheets before Feyenoord beat us on Tuesday.
In that De Kuip defeat, he was widely regarded as the team’s best performer. Brendan Rodgers described his display as “outstanding” while Joe Hart said the defender was “fantastic.”
While it’s important not to get too carried away about the former Shamrock Rovers man, he has now performed well in two big Celtic matches.
Rodgers is often keen to hammer home the point that the past is irrelevant. It’s all about what happens from here on. Players have certainly come back from tougher situations to have successful careers in green and white.
But where does that career lie? Given that we have Cameron Carter-Vickers, Maik Nawrocki and Nat Phillips — probably our leading three central defenders — to return from injury, you would expect his game time to be limited in that position.
However, Scales can also play as a left-back, and that’s a position with far less competition at present. Greg Taylor has struggled to hit the heights from last season so far under Rodgers while Alexandro Bernabei wasn’t even included in the UEFA Champions League group stage squad.
Scales is in far better form than Taylor at present. If he continues to perform well then surely it won’t be long before Rodgers considers putting him in at left-back. Once our centre-back options improve at least.
With that position appearing to be a real weak link so far this season, perhaps the stars could be aligning for Scales to become a first-team mainstay.
The Irishman certainly deserves to be in the conversation. He is likely to be in the team again for Saturday’s match against Livingston.
In other news, the remarkable Tuesday scenes that could benefit Celtic in the Champions League
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