Celtic midfielder Ryan Christie’s new contract talks were happening since the last two week, and now it has been confirmed that the player is going to stay at Park Head beyond this season. Christie signed a new three-year contract, and this can be termed as a significant turnaround from the summer. The midfielder has grabbed his chances with both hands as the likes of Scott Brown and Olivier Ntcham have been sidelined due to injuries and Rodgers would be glad that someone like Christie has stepped up.
The Hoops have had significant success in this regard as they have now signed some of their major players to new deals in the last six months. Tom Rogic, James Forrest, Kieran Tierney and Olivier Ntcham all signed a new contract at the club. It doesn’t guarantee that the players would stay beyond this season, but it ensures that Rodgers can ask for a reasonable price when bigger clubs come across to land Celtic talents in the future.
Christie has been at Park Head since 2015 but he struggled for the game time ever since, and there weren’t many who would have taken a punt on him staying beyond the end of this season. However, his performance in the past month or so has been outstanding and we feel someone like Ntcham might find it hard to replace him in the starting eleven.
Rodgers came under a lot of criticism for not being able to pull off the signing of former Hibernian Fc midfielder John McGinn who went on to join Aston Villa in the summer. However, now it seems like that helped Christie’s cause as McGinn’s signing would have put him further out of the equation from the first team.
Credit must go to Christie as not a lot of players would have kept such a positive attitude throughout especially when he had entered in the final year of his contract with talks of him moving to Aberdeen. It was believed that Aberdeen were in with an excellent chance to land him on a pre-contract in January but what a turnaround this has been.
The 23-year-old is an example for everyone who is trying to make it to the first team at Park Head and is currently on the fringes of the squad. Rodgers has shown that if the player is patient and willing to work hard, his chances will come and this should have a lot of positive impact on the young players around the club. Christie had always maintained that he wants to fight for his place at the cub and he would be proud that he finally got a new deal to continue his stint at Celtic Park.
