It wasn’t unexpected but the announcement that Patrick Roberts will take his talents away from Celtic Park next season was cause for dismay and frustration to the Celtic support. This has been a season of disappointment for the young winger, after all the hype surrounding his re-signing on loan last summer: it was seen as a coup to prise him away for another campaign from his parent club Manchester City.
Roberts, it must be said, has struggled mainly with consistent injury woes which have prevented him gaining any playing rhythm at all. He only fully came back into the first-team picture in February but seemed to be physically unfit and not at the required pace.
It’s also unclear if a fully-fit Roberts would have been a regular starter, such has been the scintillating form of James Forrest this season, perhaps unlucky to lose out to Scott Brown in the end-of-season player awards. In his competitor’s absence, the small winger made sure he wasn’t missed to the extent that he could have been, continually tormenting opposition defences with his jinking running and pace.
It was Scott Sinclair on the opposite side of the pitch, playing left wing, who has struggled more this season – despite ending up as Celtic’s top scorer – but Roberts appears like a player incapable of playing on that side; his style demands being able to cut inside onto his favoured left foot.
Manchester City already have a player who plays as such an inverted winger, Bernardo Silva, signed after Roberts departed again for Glasgow, and the arrival from Monaco has played a significant part as they cantered the Premier League title.
In Raheem Sterling’s absence, he contributed key goals and assists and highlights how tough it is to become a starter in Guardiola’s incredible side. There are younger players coming through the ranks, too, like Phil Foden and Brahim Diaz; there is much expected of the former.
The irony is that Roberts, on the surface, is a prototype Guardiola player: small, tricky, technically-gifted and skillful. He’s still only 21 years of age, and there’s a lot the Spaniard could do with his game but the more pertinent question is whether he cares enough about Roberts to do so.
Guardiola loves finding ‘pet players’, like Messi at Barcelona and Joshua Kimmich at Bayern Munich but he seems more enamoured with Sterling and left winger Leroy Sane at his current club.
His future lies away from the Etihad but not in Scotland if his interviews in the past week are anything to go by; he gave the impression of a player frustrated by a wasted year through injury, desperate to make up for the lost time immediately.
At his best, Roberts is certainly Premier League material and would suit any club willing to give him the proper pre-season to recover and get in fine shape. His style, too, would suit the European scene, where his slow and patient trickery could be perfect to unlock tight Italian or Spanish defences.
Roberts would also do well to try and secure his next destination as soon as possible, instead of wasting precious time training at a club who don’t want to keep him.
