McCarthy Must Keep Faith With Bersant Celina

The is little doubt that Bersant Celina is not a Mick McCarthy kind of player and yet he has bowed to pressure and decided that he is worth a punt.

At the beginning of the season the fear was that our manager would freeze him out of the first team picture and he never really got a look in until the Carabao Cup came around and he got a game.

Then more recently he started to get bit parts at the back end of matches and it wasn’t until Sunderland and that 5-2 thumping that he actually started a Championship match. He scored again, as he had at Palace but this did not keep him in the team for long and although he started the next match against Bristol City, he was subbed after 62 minutes.

He was now being regarded by McCarthy as a bit-part player, who could weave his magic in the dying embers of games. Pragmatic Mick felt that he was still a liability because he could lose possession far too easily in dangerous situations which might lead to goals.

McCarthy also knew that the reason Manchester City agreed to the season long loan deal was because the club still felt he was learning his art and they wanted to give him a good education at Town.

It had worked for Ryan Fraser and it had worked for Tom Lawrence so why should it not work for Bersant Celina?

But our manager was loathe to help him learn his trade at the expense of dropping points and it was only that late strike against Burton Albion that made McCarthy think again?

All of his six goals have come in the SECOND HALF of matches so the notion that if he played the full 90 minutes he would fade, contradicts the facts.

Against Cardiff he played the whole game and scored in the last minute and his strike on Saturday came after 64 minutes, which was two minutes later than when he was substituted in the 1-3 loss to Bristol City. In truth, most of his strikes have come very late in games.

As for as his vulnerabilities, well that can apply to the whole squad. David McGoldrick often loses possession in dangerous areas of the field but does not chase back with the same sense of purpose as Celina, and as we saw at the weekend, when he needlessly kicked the ball way and received a yellow card, he can be a liability in other ways too!

So then, I am glad Mick is finally taking a few risks and Bersant Celina is also starting to enjoy his time in Suffolk.

The players like to play with him and the supporters like to watch him and he is always a risk worth taking because one thing is certain, he will score more goals than he concedes.

Frank Weston – Editor of Vital Ipswich