Patrick Roberts not ambitious enough for Scottish media?

For as long as I can remember, Scottish Fitba has always punched above its weight. The negativity South of the border by people who probably don’t even watch our game annoys the life out of me.

One thing that’s worse than that though, is the people inside this country that belittle our game at every opportunity.

Fitba as we know it has changed massively in the last 20 years. TV deals have turned the game from a level playing field into David v Goliath. If you’re not in the top five leagues in Europe then forget about it. Financially you just can’t compete.

To compensate for that, what you can do is bring in the best young talent and hope to develop them to either (a) get a huge transfer fee and transform your playing squad with the money recouped from said player or (b) take the best young players on loan from the clubs who don’t think twice about paying £20m plus for players who play in that young players position.

Celtic have done so by bringing back Patrick Roberts and instead of the Scottish media rejoicing in the fact that a tremendous young talent has decided to come back and grace our game again, the knifes are out instead accusing the young man of showing a lack of ambition by one journalist in today’s papers.

The argument put forth can be summed up by this from Gordon Park’s own words:

"An inconvenient truth it may be but he has chosen to step back into his comfort zone rather than showing a belief he can push himself to a higher level. The mutual affection is one thing but how does this benefit a 20-year-old who should be desperate for new challenges?"

How does this benefit a 20-year-old?

Would he be getting games against the “top left backs in world football” by rotting on Manchester City’s bench and training? Or would he better off to continue to play on a weekly basis (even if Scottish football is down) and get Champions League football in one of the hardest groups again this season?

I’m going to go with the latter here, and that has to be part of the draw for Roberts.

However, all was not lost, as Chris Sutton stood up for the wee lad in response to the papers claims.

I think with the choice of rotting away in Man City reserves or playing against PSG, Bayern and Anderlecht and probably adding to his already impressive three medals from last Season, I know which choice I’d make at 20 years old.

That hasn’t stopped others from piling on to the utter drivel written earlier today.

Apparently said Manchester City fan (those do exist outside of the plastic manequens in store fronts right?) forgot about Roberts doing it to his “parent club” last season.

Was that ambitious enough for you?

Let’s get one thing straight. Roberts isn’t in a Hoops kit once again because he can’t hang in the EPL. He’s here because Champions League football matters and Man City decided to spend like a drunken sailor instead of promote from within.

That was Man City’s choice, and Patrick Roberts did what was best for his career. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to continue to showcase yourself and be sold on.

Maybe he isn’t commanding the insane transfer fees of other players around his age. But, a full year at the level he played at to end last season and Roberts will be there.

Sometimes good things come to those who wait.

It’s time our media changed their attitude towards our game instead of dragging it down. Celtic continuously punch above our weight every year in the Big Boys league.

Next: What is Celtic's strongest Starting XI post-transfer deadline?

Man City with their £420m squad couldn’t beat us twice last season. Give us a bit of credit eh?