Celtic find themselves in a great position right now, leading the Premiership by nine points and their place in the Scottish League Cup booked as well. One of the key reasons behind their success under the management of Ange Postecoglou has been their brilliant recruitment, as the club have done a tremendous job when it comes to identifying the right players and then signing them.
One area where they have faced quite a bit of criticism for a while now though, is their inability to bring through their youth stars into the first-team.
The only regular starter in this current Celtic team, who came through the club’s youth ranks, is Callum McGregor. And his big break came in 2014.
Through the years, there have been several highly-rated Celtic youngsters who have just never managed to establish themselves at the first-team level. One name that comes to mind immediately in that regard is that of Jack Aitchison, who holds the record for being the club’s youngest debutant as well as their youngest goalscorer, finding the back of the net with his first touch at the competitive level, against Motherwell.
Celtic record holder refuses to rule out Parkhead return
Incidentally, it is at Motherwell that Aitchison now finds himself. He has not ruled out a Parkhead return in the future though. As reported by the Daily Record, the former Celtic player said:
"“I came on and scored with my first touch and it’s hard not to think about that moment every single day! It felt as good as having a winner’s medal. Unfortunately, I felt I never really got the chance to show what I could do after that but everything happens for a reason and who knows? I’ll maybe play for them again.”"
That game was back in May 2016. A long time has passed since then and while he might have been very highly rated at that point of time, his career has not gone nearly as well as was expected.
He is still just 22 years of age though and has plenty of time to turn things around. Yet, a return to Celtic seems unlikely.
Currently, Celtic have several other highly rated youngsters in their ranks like Bosun Lawal, Rocco Vata, Joey Dawson, and many more. Hopefully, they can break through into the senior team and make their mark.