Turnbull will increase competition for places, says midfielder

NORMALLY, a player at any club wouldn’t particularly welcome the arrival of another player of a similar style, particularly one as promising as young Motherwell midfielder David Turnbull. Then again, not every player is as integral to his team as Callum McGregor is to Celtic.

McGregor was willing to give his tuppence worth on the abilities of the 21-year-old yesterday, with Celtic hoping to add him to their squad before too long in a deal worth up to £3m once add-ons have been taken into account, and he is excited by the prospect of what Turnbull could bring to the party.

Truth is, he sees a lot of himself in the playmaker, and it is surely a feather in the cap of the Fir Park product that McGregor believes he could make a valuable contribution to the Celtic midfield.

“I think he’s been excellent,” McGregor said. “Obviously Celtic have been monitoring him for a while and he’s a top young player, so I think it’d be good if we could get him in.

“It would be another face and competition for the boys as well and that always drives the standard on. His style of play is similar to myself. You want to do everything in the game and chip in with goals and assists as well.

“So, he is definitely a young, exciting talent and all the right noises are coming from everywhere. Everybody likes him, he’s a good kid as well and to get him in would be good for Celtic.

“It is the same every year when boys come in, whether they are midfielders, attackers, defenders, it always helps the squad and so it will drive the standards up.

“Celtic are always looking to get better and then you know you have to get better as well”.

McGregor is certainly hoping to fare better tonight in Celtic’s Champions League qualifier against Ferencvaros than he and his team-mates did when their bid to reach the group stages came a cropper against Cluj last season.

Deployed at left-back, McGregor and the entire backline had a night to forget, shipping four goals on home turf to be skittled out of the competition.

He is banking on the painful lessons of that night, though, to help Celtic through against the Hungarian champions this evening.

“It’s important that you always learn from nights like that,” he said. “It’s important that we remember that feeling on Wednesday night, we don’t want to be feeling like that again.

“Those experiences are

His style of play is similar to myself. He’s a good kid