It was a gamble but now I believe Craig can get even better
AT The outset, Celtic’s goalkeeping coach Stevie Woods had quite modest expectations. Inviting Craig Gordon to train with the club, a two-year absence from professional football told its own tale. Of persistent injury and doubts he would ever perform at the top level again.
‘I had Craig in on a Tuesday,’ Woods recalled. ‘I’d already spoken to Neil Lennon and said that with Craig being available for free, and if he were to prove his fitness, then we would win a watch signing him.
‘ So I brought him in f or a 45-minute session where I just absolutely battered him.
‘I felt the only way we’d be able to properly judge his fitness, to see if he’d recovered OK, was to then bring him back in on the Thursday for another tough session. If he wasn’t able to do that, then my thinking was he would not have been any good to us.
‘Craig came through it with no problems.’
The prospect of Celtic gazumping Rangers — where he trained — to sign Gordon was growing. Woods recognised that his fitness and goal coverage was lower than it had been. But the footwork which made him Scotland No 1 was intact. And with Fraser Forster tipped to leave for england sooner rather than later, the Parkhead side rolled the dice.
‘It was a gamble,’ Woods conceded. ‘But it was less of a gamble because there wasn’t a fee involved.
‘The rewards of that gamble were going to be that, provided we got him back to high levels of fitness, we were going to have a fantastic goalkeeper on our hands.
‘From day one, we said, “Just aim to get back to the level you were at down at Sunderland,”’ Woods recalled. ‘But then we quickly ripped that up and said, “There’s no reason why you can’t go beyond that.”
‘ I honestly believe Craig is capable of anything. It’s just a case of the environment, keeping him fit, and his mindset to get there.
‘All three of those aspects are there, so the sky’s the limit for Craig.’
In europe, Gordon has excelled. But f or stunning i ndividual displays against Salzburg, Dinamo Zagreb and Astra it is doubtful whether Celtic would be in the last 32 of the europa League, preparing for a glamour tie with Inter Milan. even a year ago, playing at that level again seemed improbable.
Woods concedes the 32-year-old has surprised even him. ‘Craig has exceeded my expectations,’ he said. ‘ he has played 26 games for us so far.
‘From the moment he played his first game for us, and there was no real rebound with his knee, then we knew it was manageable. After that, it was a case of small targets and clearing each hurdle as it came.
‘First, it was 10 games — that was massive. Getting back into the Scotland squad and being able to handle the workload with that was another important step. It’s a different daily workload with Scotland; they do double sessions.
‘From our point of view, one of the major things in coming to Celtic for Craig has been adjusting to the fact he’s our first point of attack.
‘he’d never played for a team like that. It meant his first touch had to be better, his distribution had to be better.
‘It wasn’t just a case of kicking the ball up the park. It’s now kicking it into areas, throwing it into areas.
‘he’s taken that responsibility on board. So, there are little tick boxes that we’ve come to.
‘We know exactly where Craig is in terms of his development and we’re very happy.’
If anything, Gordon was an insurance policy for Celtic. Forster was expected to leave, and did, for £10million. But no one could say for sure if the new goalkeeper would be fit for five games or 50.
‘ The goalposts moved very quickly — Fraser was sold to Southampton — and we had to ask Craig if he felt capable of playing regularly for the first team.
‘Initially, we were thinking of him playing 15 games this season as back-up to Fraser, if we went on a Champions League run and had a heavy schedule. We would have looked to play Craig in the cup games, keeping him fit as well as keeping Fraser and Lukasz Zaluska on their toes.
‘But then it all changed with Fraser leaving.
‘Craig said he was feeling good going into training and the same for games. he felt he could handle the workload no problem. So it became an easy decision.
‘I know that there were other clubs alerted to his availability. But the whole thing fell into our lap because I knew Craig wanted to stay in Scotland.
‘he felt that the way we sold it to him — Champions League, coming in and challenging for honours, working closely with me, pushing for the first team, the manager rating him — that was everything he wanted to hear.
‘The minute we decided he was going to be fit, we wanted to move on it immediately.’
Ultimately the decision — the responsibility — fell to Woods. Credited with taking Forster, a Newcastle United fringe player, and propelling him into england’s World Cup squad, the former Motherwell keeper is developing an impressive strike rate.
A close friend of Forster, Woods won’t make comparisons but does believe Gordon can get better.
‘You would need to ask Craig, but I think there’s another dimension of his game to come,’ he said. ‘In terms of his shot-stopping and goal coverage, it’s second to none.
‘But there are other aspects to come. Craig is only going to get better.’
There were whispers, when Forster went south, that he might try to take Woods with him.
‘There was no question of that,’ added Woods. ‘It’s almost unheard of for a goalie coach to go with a goalkeeper. I’m a Celtic fan and this is where I wanted to work.
‘Bringing Fraser through is one of the finest things you can do as a coach.
‘To bring in someone who most didn’t know about, or didn’t rate, or didn’t see the potential of, and make him a three-times champion and england international, then pass him on to a big Premiership club — that’s why you’re in coaching.’