Gordon warns it will be tough to hold on to Armstrong
Celtic goalkeeper wants club to stave off wealthy suitors and tie down midfielder
CRAIG GORDON, the Celtic goalkeeper, is keen for the club to tie down Stuart Armstrong on a new contract as quickly as possible before some of the main movers and shakers down south start making tempting advances.
Armstrong’s renaissance under the Celtic manager, Brendan Rodgers, reached a new high last Sunday when he played a pivotal role in Scotland’s last-gasp victory over Slovenia at Hampden which kept the nation’s faint World Cup qualifying hopes flickering.
In the jubilant aftermath of that 1-0 triumph, Armstrong was showered with torrents of acclaim from all and sundry as he capped an industrious, inventive and inspirational debut by setting up Chris Martin’s 88th-minute winner which effectively saved Gordon Strachan’s job as national team manager.
Armstrong, who had fallen out of favour under the previous Celtic boss Ronny Deila but has been revitalised under Rodgers’ regime, has around 16 months left on his current contract with the reigning Scottish champions and Gordon has joined the chorus of praise for the 24-year-old Invernesian.
“He is playing fantastically well at the moment,” said Gordon. “He wasn’t in the team at the start of the season but worked really hard, got himself in the team and is now playing probably the best football he has ever played.
“To go into a Scotland team and play like he did on Sunday, I thought he was outstanding. The energy he brought into the midfield, he just ran his opposite number into the ground. Slovenia couldn’t deal with him.
“To have that amount of energy in your engine room, with the quality he possesses as well, is great. He scores goals and makes goals. He is a real asset for any team to have.
“He could play at Premier League level. He is turning into a big player and he is doing it in big games now.
“That’s sometimes what you look for from players, to see how they do in the bigger games. He is contributing, scoring in games against Rangers and now creating goals for Scotland.
“He’s got everything and is playing with so much confidence at the moment. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some really big teams looking at him.”
The next big international meeting for Gordon, Armstrong and the rest of the Scotland squad is the Hampden showdown with old foes England on June 10. Whether another Celtic mainstay, Scott Brown, will be involved in the cross-border tussle remains to be seen but Gordon believes his team-mate has earned the right to make up his own mind despite outside criticisms that he shouldn’t be allowed to pick and choose appearances. “He is at something like 500 games now at Celtic and has a lot of miles on the clock,” added Gordon.
“We want him to play in every game he possibly can. He is the same. He just wants to keep playing. He goes through injuries and knocks, no one ever knows he is injured. He never makes a fuss, he just gets on with it and plays through almost any injury he possibly can. He is always out there leading the team.
“He’ll know himself if he can do the team justice or not. If he feels that he can’t go out there and do as well as he wants to do then that is his decision.
“We should respect that because he has earned it with the amount of football he has played over his career and the way he has gone about his business.”
It’s not a bad position to be in. Celtic’s players could kick back on Friday night, slip into their baffies and open an industrial size packet of granny sookers while watching Aberdeen versus Dundee on the telly. By the time that poke of sweeties has been devoured over the course of 90 minutes, Celtic could be crowned Scottish champions, providing Aberdeen don’t pick up maximum points at Dens Park.
And if it doesn’t happen on Friday night, then the Celtic players get the chance to put the tin lid on affairs off their own bat on Sunday with victory over Hearts at Tynecastle. All in all then, it’s a win-win situation. Well, not if Aberdeen win and Celtic lose that is. But let’s not complicate what are merely the formalities of an inevitable coronation in the very near future.
“I don’t care, I really don’t care,” said Craig Gordon, the Celtic goalkeeper, when asked if he would prefer to win the title in those aforementioned baffies or with the gloves and boots on.
“We have put in the hard work for so long that it really doesn’t matter. Over the whole season we have gone and done everything that has been asked of us domestically so far and it doesn’t matter whether it is before the game or not.”
The chance to secure the league title at the ground of his former club Hearts, though, would give that championship winning feeling an extra resonance for Gordon, who was born and raised in Auld Reekie and remains a sturdy Jambo.
“Growing up I have always wanted to win the league at Tynecastle,” he said with a wry smile.
“It will be nice to get it wrapped up as soon as possible by whatever means. I am sure I will take some stick from my pals but that is football. I just have to get on with it and go out and play the game and try to win the match.”
With Celtic players shining for both club and country – there were six in the Scotland team that overcame Slovenia on Sunday – Gordon continues to relish this period of purposeful prosperity. While his young team-mate, Stuart Armstrong, was earning rave reviews for a debut that, by all accounts, was as jaw-dropping as The Beatles’ first American appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, Gordon’s even younger colleague, Kieran Tierney, was also having sodden lumps of acclaim shovelled over him as he moved from right-back to left-back to aid the national cause.
“He was brilliant and he said in the dressing room that he maybe shouldn’t have played so well because he might have turned himself into a right-back,” added Gordon.
“He said the last time he played there it was under-12s – that is only a couple of years ago. Some of the movements and patterns of play were similar to what you would see at club level. The boys playing together really does help the solidity of the team. Going back to the start of my international career I had the two Hearts centre halves which was a great help and we kept a lot of clean sheets.”
Whether Celtic travel to Tynecastle as champions or have to complete the job on the day, Gordon will always harbour fond memories of events down Gorgie way.
Back in a turbulent and triumphant 2005/2006 campaign, the 34-year-old was part of the Hearts side which split the Old Firm and finished second in the table to secure a crack at the Champions League while also lifting the Scottish Cup.
The night Hearts beat Aberdeen to seal the runners-up spot is not one Gordon will forget. Winning the league in Edinburgh on Sunday might just trump that, though.
“That was a nervy night (against Aberdeen) and that was the highlight because it was the highest finish we achieved when I was there,” said Gordon of a season in which Hearts won their first eight games before George Burley was sacked as the club’s eccentric, meddling owner Vladimir Romanov flung his rubles-worth into affairs. “We possibly could have done a little better that season too as we started off so well. It would have been nice to see if we had been able to continue but there was a lot going on behind the scenes. We still managed to get through and finish second behind Celtic and we won the cup so it was a good season all round. It wouldn’t have taken a great deal more to push on and give Celtic a bigger fright.”
Should Celtic require a win on Sunday, then there’s little evidence to suggest they’ll suffer any stage fright given their utter dominance this season.
“It was more a feeling of relief when we won the league last season,” he said. “But this year has just been hard work, great organisation and everybody pulling in the one direction.”
Craig Gordon was speaking at the launch of a partnership between Celtic Women’s first team and Eden Mill St Andrews