The Athletic ran a piece yesterday which, I felt, gave a really good insight as to how our southern neighbours view the Scottish game and players through the eyes of a scout.
It is long believed that clubs downs south don’t view our league in a particularly positive light but there have been various transfer success stories, mainly from Celtic, that have seen players go the English Premier League and take it by storm.
Modern day, Kieran Tierney and Virgil Van Djik are the best examples but we can go as far back as Victor Wanyama, Fraser Forster and Henrik Larsson when he eventually landed at Manchester United.
So anyway, back to the story, if you get a chance to read the piece by The Athletic then please do as it is now showing that, and I believe it’s because of Brexit, scouts from down south are now starting to view Scotland as an attractive area to scout players.
But this quote grabbed my attention. Now the reason it’s form a ‘mysterious’ scout is that because all scouts interviewed wanted their identities protected for obvious reasons.
So when asked this question, “Does the Old F*rm being so dominant mean some scouts find it hard to know how players’ skills would translate in England?”, Premier League Scout 8 said , “It’s all about appropriateness.
“I like David Turnbull as his tactical awareness of how to play against a low block is really good and that is what we need at our club, so doing that every week for Celtic is good for us to assess.
Just two words for this scout and one begins with ‘F’.
There is no way Celtic will allow Turnbull to go anywhere at this point and time.
In fact, I believe the Scottish international could be pivotal for Celtic this upcoming season, especially with the departures of Nir Bitton and Tom Rogic.
Let’s hope Ange puts a ‘Not For Sale’ sign up on this one.