Pundit Paul John Dykes has recently praised Stephen Welsh for his performance in the Old Firm derby on Saturday.
Dykes was hosting the latest episode of the ‘A Celtic State of Mind’ podcast and the panel discussed multiple issues involving the Bhoys. One topic of discussion was the performance of Welsh and how he played against the Gers in the Old Firm derby. Dykes had praise for the youngster and Welsh was his man of the match in the game.
Welsh made his first appearance of the season on Saturday. The 20-year-old has made two appearances in all competitions for the Bhoys in his senior career. He played 84 minutes in the game against the Gers and is currently valued at £135k.
Was Welsh Celtic's best player against Rangers?
Yes
No
Dykes had praise for the youngster’s performance and he believes that the defender was ‘excellent’ in the game.
He said: “My man of the match was young Welsh, this is my positive. Last night, we mentioned it on A Celtic State of Mind – lucky or a good source who knows but we knew he was playing last night. He came on, I thought he had a very good game.
“He was caught a bit flat-footed [for] the goal, I think. Can’t blame the young guy though. I thought he had an excellent game for his first game against Rangers.”
TIF Thoughts…
The 20-year-old picked up a rating of 6.49 in the game on Saturday. Only four Celtic players picked up better ratings than him in the game and it shows that he indeed did come up with a pretty good performance at Celtic Park (as per Whoscored).
He made the highest number of clearances for Celtic with seven. He also made the joint second-highest number of interceptions for the Bhoys (as per Whoscored). So it was clearly a pretty solid defensive performance and Dykes is right to praise him for it.