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“Absolutely brilliant”: Noel Whelan offers up a potential new venture for club veteran

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Out with the old job in with the new job.

That seems to be the message that Noel Whelan was getting across when talking about Celtic goalkeeper Craig Gordon. The 37-year-old first signed for the Bhoys back in 2014 and has racked up over 200 appearances for the club.

However Gordon has found his place in goal taken up by Fraser Forster for the majority of the season, and with his contract expiring at the end of the campaign, whenever that may be, Whelan believes that there’s only one place for him to go next, and that’s into the coaching setup.

Speaking to Football Insider, Whelan said that the former most-expensive British goalkeeper would be best off sharing his commitments when it comes to the end of his current deal:

“The other option is him being a Celtic in a coaching capacity. It is something you have got to look at. He could sign a new contract – coaching with the 23s – still as a player but not a regular. One that is turned to if and when you need him. Craig has done so much in the game and he needs to assess what he wants from the next three or four years. I think coaching would be absolutely brilliant. He will be thinking about it.”

I think Whelan has an excellent point here. It’s clear by his dwindling amount of minutes over the past few seasons that his time as a player is slowly coming to an end, but he is very much still part of the furniture at Celtic Park having been with us for so long and won so many trophies with us.

Should the club move Gordon to the U23 coaching team?

Yes

Yes

No

Now is as good a chance as any for him to nurture the next generation of Celtic goalkeepers. With Forster only being with us on loan, attention will have to who is going to be between the sticks in the future.

Whilst Scott Bain might be the next in line given the amount of games he’s played this season, it’s never too early to look beyond that and see who from the academy could make the step up. So having Gordon mentor that youngster whilst Bain focuses on being number one seems like a relatively no brainer all things considered.

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