CELTIC BOSS Brendan Rodgers hailed Irish defender Liam Scales after the reigning Scottish champions’ 3-1 Scottish Premiership win over Kilmarnock on Saturday.
After joining from Shamrock Rovers in 2021, the 25-year-old was largely on the periphery of the squad initially.
He spent last season on loan at Aberdeen and appeared to be on his way out of Parkhead before an injury crisis at the back gave the player his chance.
Since then, Scales has played regularly and Rodgers opted to drop Liverpool loanee Nathaniel Phillips to the bench yesterday rather than the Irishman, as Cameron-Carter Vickers came into the starting XI.
Asked whether the former UCD man was now his first-choice centre-back, Rodgers told BBC Scotland: “He’s outstanding. I’m so happy for him.
“He’s probably one of the biggest surprises in my career as a coach. And only because I hadn’t seen him play so much.
“There were others ahead of him, and through ones leaving and others being injured, I’ve seen enough in training to give him the opportunity, but how he’s taken it.
“You ideally always want a left-sided centre-half in your team that has good pace and intelligence and he has all of that.
“You see him and how he’s playing and performing — he’s really grown as a player.
“I’m so happy for him because he’s got pressure over from Ireland and there’s a big focus on the Irish players when they come to here.
“But he’s been outstanding. And I’m obviously delighted for him, he’s now into the Republic of Ireland squad.”
💬 Brendan Rodgers described Liam Scales as one of the “biggest surprises in my career as a coach”. Very high praise. pic.twitter.com/inH1zyoLMD
— Craig (@CraigCelt) October 7, 2023
Scales was not the only one to catch the eye, with Rodgers also praising Luis Palma, who he believes is gradually becoming more accustomed to the demands of playing for Celtic.
The Honduran scored his team’s second goal in the win over Kilmarnock in what was his first Premiership start since arriving from Aris Thessaloniki in August.
Rodgers felt it was unrealistic to expect new signings to be “perfect right away” and revealed he was looking only for incremental improvement.
“You see with Palma, he’s getting better game by game. He was excellent today and scored a very good goal.
“He was dangerous. He played his part in a very good collective performance.”
Kilmarnock got a goal back through David Watson with the score at 2-0, but Rodgers believed a foul should have been awarded in the build-up.
He added: “We had the ball on the edge of the box, Greg Taylor was manhandled by their guy to the ground and we didn’t get a foul.
“The VAR only started when the play went forward. They scored from the position Greg would have been in.
“I don’t like talking about referees, but we’ve now got a whole team of people looking at it. The ref doesn’t see it, he had his back to the play. By the time he turned around, the foul was committed.
“But a guy on the line can see it, like me. On top of that, there’s a VAR team watching it with a cup of tea and no drama. They still didn’t see it.”
Celtic had a penalty award overturned by the VAR following a coming-together between Reo Hatate and Watson.
Kilmarnock manager Derek McInnes – who would not address speculation linking him with the Rangers managerial vacancy – felt the Japanese midfielder had embellished any contact.
He said: “My first thought was that Hatate has gone down far too easily. For me, he’s waiting for contact. But I don’t think there was any contact. If I’m wrong then I’ll apologise.
“But for me, it’s trying to buy a penalty and the referee has bought it as I thought he would. I thought, ‘he’s going to give a penalty here’ and he did.
“My heart sank and then VAR overturned it. But that’s far too easy to go down, far too easy from Hatate. That’s poor.”
Additional reporting by Press Association
