Former Celtic manager Gordon Strachan has revealed the one Hoops player who he believes left opponents in a ‘psychiatric room’ due to his consistency over the last five and a half years.
With two Celtic players who have consistently started for the Hoops over the same period, starting against Bayern Munich on Wednesday night at Celtic Park, it was only between Celtic skipper Callum McGregor or Greg Taylor that the former Scotland boss was talking about.
That player was, of course, Greg Taylor, who has, since signing in the summer of 2019, seen off Boli Bolingoli, Diego Laxalt, Alexandro Bernabei, and now Álex Valle.
With Kieran Tierney set to re-join the Hoops in the summer, Taylor’s current Celtic deal is up at the end of the season, and the Scottish left-back has yet to sign a new deal.
Dinamo Zagreb have been heavily linked with a pre-contract agreement, though it hasn’t been officially announced, meaning there is still a chance that Taylor stays to compete with Tierney. Strachan has revealed how he sees the battle between Taylor and Tierney if he were to stay.
He said: (Genting Casino),”I feel that Greg Taylor’s been magnificent over the years because of the number of left backs he’s seen off. There should be a dressing room full of left backs who just sit there, who have come along and totally failed to move this lad.
“There should be some sort of psychiatric room at Celtic’s training ground for the left backs that come in and have been seen off. They’ll just sit there and go, ‘Why did I bother?’ It might be different for Kieran, but he keeps seeing people off. Greg Taylor, he gets on with his job, he can score, he makes goals, he gets into great midfield positions.
“What’s happened is when he was brought in, they had him move into these midfield positions, but he was a midfield player when he was a kid so he can adapt to that.
“Whether Kieran can adapt as well as that to go into these midfield positions that we’d like them to do, it’s a different sort of thing. It’s a different position where Taylor goes into.”
Taylor has done well against the players he’s been up against at Celtic for the starting left-back slot. Despite all the criticism, it’s not his fault that he has clearly been, since Tierney’s departure, the best left-back at the club.
Tierney will be the biggest competition Taylor has faced, given his unbelievable first spell at Celtic from 2015 to 2019.
Taylor has been somewhat disrespected; he is rarely injured and gives his all every time he’s on the pitch. However, negotiations between him and the club have seemingly broken down despite Brendan Rodgers’ best public attempts to convince Taylor to re-sign.
Whether he will stay past the summer remains to be seen, but it would be a great battle next season between the two Scottish internationals for a starting spot.
Total nonsense!