If everyone is fit there's three Premier League regulars in there battling him for a starting place. Four if you include Matt Doherty, who he's not directly competing with but who is relevant as he's competing with centre backs for the starting position at right back. But, even leaving Doherty asíde, I think it would be a bold move to pick a backup SPL player over any of the three lads who are going well in the Premier League.
Is o shea going well?Originally Posted by Eirambler
Yes, he's having a very strong season on a personal level. Ipswich will likely be relegated but (like most relegated teams) they have a few players who are genuinely good enough to be playing at that level and he's one of them.
Even Celtic social media thinks he was really good yesterday. Probably saved the game for them with some important interventions. He's becoming very commanding in the air.
Just shows how highlights can be misleading. Because 1) the tackle for the non-awarded penalty looked clumsy as fook, and 2) he was waaaay too easily barged out of it in the air for the disallowed goal.
If I question Liam Scales ability to play intl football, refer me to this signature & his peformance at home at lb vs Port on Nov 13 2025.
Signed
Kingdom.
Just want to give a shout out to Scales as perhaps the unsung hero of the window. Just really fantastic. Played a good chunk of the 180 minutes out of position at left wingback and was incredibly solid given the circumstances. His bravery and timing in the box with those key knock down headers for the goals just immense.
He’s a player who’s had to overcome many doubters at club and international level but really nothing but respect for him — a late bloomer who seems to still be getting better for club and country. Long may it continue.
Just shows that the best players in the LoI aren't too far off making an impact for the national team. Id have Honohan down as a better all round player than Scales so hopefully he gets a chance and people are patient as he gets up to speed.
Scales post match reaction:
Last edited by tetsujin1979; 16/11/2025 at 11:24 PM.
Night and day to hearing the likes of Doherty talk about things. shamrock rovers players just do better.
To be fair Scales has come on leaps and bounds since he left Ireland, he struggled badly in the early days at Celtic and looked miles off it at that point. If anything, it was the season on loan at Aberdeen that was the making of him and then he benefitted from Celtic signing a few duds at centre back to push his way in there. Delighted for him though, I liked him in the under 21s but at the same time wouldn't have expected this. It's more satisfying somehow when a player unexpectedly develops a bit later as he has done.
Dropped/rested/whatevered tonight for Celtic, but they lost again anyway. They really seem to be having their Stephen Kenny moment with this Nancy guy. He appears to be someone who has walked in the door from another league with a formation and a philosophy for how the game should be played, with seemingly little interest in adapting his style to the players he actually has at his disposal at his new club. Which has lead to dreadful defeats to teams they would probably have beaten if O'Neill was still in charge.
Hardly Scales' fault any of this.
No.surprise to see his scapegoating, though...
I suspect the Henry reign is going to be quite funny
If Hearts mess this up they'll be livid
I think, bad and all as Celtic are, they're worse when they don't play him. It's actually hard to believe how far they've fallen in terms of the quality of their playing squad. Celtic supporters used to not like being told that their team was English Championship standard, but that's honestly more of a League 1 level squad that they have right now.
The Scottish Premiership in general just has so few genuinely good quality players in it now. Really average English lower league players can now go to Scotland and look amazing there. From an Ireland point of view, other than Scales as a squad option, we probably shouldn't be going anywhere near it in terms of our senior squad selections.
Feels like it's only a matter of time before the Celtic board panics again and reverts to O'Neill until the end of the season. If they do it before New Year there's probably enough time still left for them to overhaul Hearts and win the league, not that that's any huge achievement given their resources and the issues their city rivals have been having.
Tbf they were all over Dundee Utd in the first half and could have been 4 up. It should have been over at HT.
I actually agree with Nancy that Celtic are very fragile when things go wrong, but he certainly doesn't be able to stop that from happening.
I was at the Scottish league cup final on Sunday and Scales was very poor. Maybe its a new position or new instructions, but he and his overlapping fullback/winger were completely at odds with each other. Kenny was woeful too when he came on.
We can see how much Scottish football has fallen off a cliff by their catastrophic European results.
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