James Forrest earns first team call up after starring for u-19's

by Joe McHugh

Two goal James Forrest was the star of today's 4-0 win over St Johnstone for the Celtic u-19 side.

Forrest's early season form has been recognised by Tony Mowbray who has called the 18-year-old up to join the squad travelling to Toronto to face Benfica on Wednesday.

It was a good co-ordinated team performance from Stevie Frail's side against St Johnstone with Forrest adding an extra dimension that caught the eye.

Notionally playing wide on the right, he was happy to drop deep to take the ball off the central defenders, cut inside to add to the midfield or push up front to support the strikers.

DISTINCTIVE

I've only watched Forrest play a few times but his distinctive hunched running style isn't the only stand out feature.

There's a maturity and intelligence about his game, an awareness, to match his skill, pace and bravery that marks him down as someone to watch although graduation from youth football through to senior professional can be very fickle.

Forrest is clearly in the potential category with Frail honest in his praise without going overboard about the talented young Celt.

The Celtic coach said: "We're all aware of what a good player James Forrest is, he has a long way to go but you can see that there is a wee sparkle to his game. People like seeing wingers and he goes at players.

"We're glad to have him in our set up and we hope that he can progress. We ask him to come in off the wings and mix things up a bit, he can go at players and has good pace. James can also play through the middle or off the strikers. He can play in a variety of positions."

INJURY

Forrest missed the majority of last season through injury but returned at the tail end of the campaign to score in his reserve team debut at Celtic Park against Dundee United.

Frail added: "It's good to have him back after missing most of last season, I'd just arrived at the club when he scored a fabulous goal for the reserves. When I arrived people mentioned to me to look out for James."

Forrest wasn't the only Celt to impress against St Johnstone who competed well for most of the game but failed to carry any real threat to the Celtic defence.

STARK

Celtic opened the scoring in the 23rd minute through Richie Towell who timed his run perfectly to the back post to net from Jordan Loudon's pass.

Watching the match was Scotland u-21 boss Billy Stark who made scoring goals like that a feature of his career.

Four minutes from half-time Forrest doubled Celtic's lead after a brilliant pass from Luca Santanocito split the St Johnstone defence wide open, Forrest latched onto the pass, side stepped the keeper and confidently planted the ball in the net.

New Bhoy Greig Spence, signed from Alloa, scored Celtic's third in the 76th minute from close range with Forrest completing the scoring in the final minute from the penalty spot.

Looking at his side's early season form Frail said: "We've got good players, we're building on the work that has been done before. There are a lot of good players here and my job is to progress them into the manager's plans.

"At Celtic we need to win but the emphasis and focus has to be on development. If we win the league but don't produce players then we're not doing our job.

"We have to marry together developing players with winning. Development is the emphasis and that's to produce players for the SPL and the Champions League. By developing players properly you should be able to do that with a winning mentality."

CELTIC: Giordano; Toshney (Hughes) D Gallagher, G Gallagher, Brennan; Forrest, Towell, Santonocito, Lowdon; Spence, Keatings

GOALS Towell 23, Forrest 41 & 89, Spence 76

Dejected McGeady misses out on the Champions League

The disappointment of Celtic's Champions League exit was especially painful for Aiden McGeady.

After three consecutive season's with the biggest names in the game visiting Celtic Park he would have been looking forward to more of the same with greater responsibility thanks to his new role under Tony Mowbray.

AIDEN MCGEADY INTERVIEW

Over the two games, regardless of dodgy decisions and lucky goals, there was no doubting that Arsenal deserved to go through but at no point did Celtic put them under any sustained pressure or get close to playing the type of football that supporters had hoped to see.

McGeady sets himself high standards, and doesn't dodge the issue when it comes down to his, or the teams, shortcomings.

After the defeat at the Emirates he admitted: "There's a difference in quality, Arsenal get the ball down and every one of their players wants the ball and is comfortable, they want to play the ball forward.

"Over the two legs we thought that we could have got closer to Arsenal. In the first leg they got two lucky goals, but we never did ourselves justice and it's been the same story again.

"Arsenal are one of the teams that could win the Champions League. The Europa League won't be as strong as that, although there will be some good teams in it.

"Hopefully we can do ourselves justice in that competition instead of coming to the Emirates, not playing well and not doing ourselves justice."

AIDEN MCGEADY INTERVIEW

Ujpest draw derby with Honved

Willie McStay's Ujpest Dozsa drew 1-1 with Honved on Sunday in their first derby match of the season, a result that keeps the Violas in fourth place, five points behind leaders MTK Budapest.

With less than a week to go in the transfer window McStay is anxious to bring in some new faces to add to the squad with some not so new faces from Celtic probably high on his list of priorities.

Midfielder Mark Millar got a full game against Honved with former Celtic striker Diarmuid O'Carroll on trial for a week.

There has been some outgoing business going on at the club with striker Bence Szabo joining Wolves on loan and defender Zsolt Korcsmar going on trial to German side Freiburg.

Ujpest have got informal links with West Ham and Wolves and there seems to be a lot of movement with players moving to Germany, Belgium and Holland regularly as well as Hungarian players returning to Ujpest.

After the draw with Honved McStay said: "We played well in the first half, and scored a lovely goal, while dictating play at the same time.

"We really needed to score the second goal at that point, which would have decided the match. We began the second half well, but Honved came back into the game, and created chances, and managed to equalise."

Youths winning start at Aberdeen.

Celtic's u-19 side continued their impressive pre-season form against Aberdeen yesterday with a 2-0 win at Blairgowrie. Rangers drew their opener at home to Falkirk 2-2.

Details are thin on the ground but the Aberdeen website does have some impressive pictures from the match.

James Forrest and James Keatings got the goals, Forrest made a scoring debut for the reserve side at home to Dundee United towards the end of last season.

As with most clubs, defeat at this sort of level is always due to playing a very young and inexperienced side or a number of players being called up for first team duty, now that the Reserve League appears to be dead.

I've still to see the Celtic youth side this season but it seems that there has been quite an overhaul with Stevie Frail and Tommy McIntyre involved.

During their pre-season preparations the u-19's were runners up to Liverpool in the VilaReal Tournament having progressed through from a group that contained Real Madrid and AC Milan.