Celtic FC - The Stuff of Legends?

Article by e-Celtic's Jim Payne

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The biggish story for Celtic on Monday morning concerned not their Champions League qualifier on Tuesday evening with Legia Warsaw but the news that Tony Watt, the club's 20 year old striker, is to be sold to Belgian side Standard Liege for a fee of £1.2m pounds.

Amidst the understandable local hoopla surrounding the Commonwealth Games - and rumours that bids from EPL clubs are imminent for Fraser Forster and Virgil Van Dijk - the story of Tony Watt has been rather buried. The fee, if true, apparently represents a bit of good business by Celtic - £1m more than was spent on buying him from Airdrie and for a player who scored 8 goals in Celtic's first team - but I am sad he's away.

I first saw Tony Watt in a pre-season friendly against Partick when he came on as a sub. He looked a bit raw but I liked that he was quick and had a bit of bustle about him. The rest of the team - other than first team rejects Hooiveld and Rasmussen - were youngsters who were 'nice' players but a bit insipid and to me the Coatbridge youngster looked the only one with any real potential.

He made a few fleeting sub appearances towards the end of the 2011/12 season and in one, against Motherwell, he scored the two goals which turned things in Celtic's favour. The 2012/3 season saw him start a few games - often on the weekend before Celtic played Champions League matches - and generally he impressed. He was fast, had decent control, was willing to take players on and he could finish. The lad had definite potential.

On the 7th of November 2012 Tony was listed as a substitute for Celtic's match with Barcelona and with 20 minutes or so to go he was brought on. It was a bold move to bring him on in a game Celtic was leading 1-0 - and for a full back I think- but with a few minutes to go following a mistake by Xavi there was Watt racing in on goal before finishing calmly to put Celtic 2-0 up . I cannot think of any goal since Celtic Park became an all-seated stadium that was more rapturously received than that one which sank the Catalan megastars. And the thing was as he raced towards goal I knew he would score. The bhoy had it. This was, as Ian Crocker said ‘the stuff of legends’. A star was born.

Except that was not how it turned out. The following Sunday he scored a scrappy goal against St Johnstone as Celtic drew a boring match and that was it for Tony Watt. He picked up an injury or two not long afterwards and appeared only sporadically thereafter mainly as a sub. The writing was on the wall for him when Celtic spent around £1m on the young Vitoria Guimares striker Amido Balde and at the end of the 2013 summer transfer window Watt was loaned out to Belgium’s SK Lierse Belgium where he scored 8 goals in 17 league games. He was an unused sub during Celtic’s recent 2nd leg match with KR Reykjavik and played some of the friendly in Hamburg against St Pauli but now, apparently he’s off. Why did it go so wrong and so quickly?

Well the injuries in the aftermath of that famous goal against Barcelona might not have helped and when he did play I don’t think he was exactly helped by being shoved out on to the wing where he was less effective. But there were rumours that after his moment of greatness he thought he’d already done it all. There were rumours that he didn’t train hard, that he had fallen out with Neil Lennon and that his behaviour away from Celtic Park left a bit to be desired. None of it was confirmed but the mud stuck. His confidence may have been affected by finding he was below Balde in the pecking order- despite the Guinea-Bissau born Portuguese striker looking to be absolutely terrible- and a bad miss when one-on-one with the ‘keeper in a match early in the 2012/3 season against Inverness Caley Thistle suggested his career was in reverse. He scored a few in Belgium but fell afoul of Lierse coach Stanley Menzo who described the Scot as being lazy and unfit.

Tony Watt may rebuild his career in Liege and I hope he does. But going back decades Celtic have had quite a few young strikers who’ve started off explosively and whose careers have petered out – Vic Davidson, Danny Crainie, Gerry Creaney, Simon Donnelly and Mark Burchill in my time – but there was something different about Watt. Unlike the others he was big and strong where the others were all short and somewhat slight. Some of those guys scored against Rangers but Barcelona in the autumn of 2012 were in several different classes of quality higher than any of the Rangers’teams that Crainie, Creaney or Burchill scored against. All of those other youngsters failed because they weren’t quite good enough on the field. Tony Watt failure to build on his spectacular early success seems less to do with his ability as a player and a lot more to do with his failings off it- I very much doubt that Stanley Menzo said he what he did out of pure spite.

If Tony Watt is ‘lazy and unfit’,too fond of a good night out and thought that scoring one great goal meant we should tug our forelocks in gratitude for ever more then Celtic is well rid of him. He looked good but he was hardly the new Henrik Larsson either. But there still seems something hugely disappointing that on the same day as Celtic’s bean counters rub their hands at getting a lot of money for a player unlikely to fulfil his potential Celtic have signed an attacking player- on loan- who managed a whole two games for Cardiff City last season. I wish Jo Inge Berget well but doubt very much that he will ever score as momentous a goal as Tony Watt did. Had Tony Watt screwed the nut in the afterglow of that goal versus Barca he might have done so for Celtic again. If he screws the nut now he may well go onto great things. But it won’t be for Celtic.

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