FORMER CELTIC loanee Oliver Burke reckons his current loan spell in Spain puts him in the ‘shop window’ as he looks to next summer when he returns to his parent club West Brom when his current contract ends.
Burke is looking to start for Steve Clarke’s Scotland side against Cyprus at the GSP Stadium in Nicosia on Saturday afternoon – the kick-off is at 4pm GMT.
Brendan Rodgers brought Burke north of the border back in January and he got off to a decent start wearing the Hoops, although things didn’t end particularly well. Neil Lennon gave him a start at Ibrox in the dead rubber match in May and was apparently less than impressed by the forward’s performance.
He returned to West Brom, who had paid around £15million to RB Leipzig for the former Nottingham Forrest man, and a row erupted when the West Brom Director of Football choose to have a bizarre pop at Neil Lennon for his man management of their player. However after featuring in a match at the start of the season, West Brom loaned the 22 year old Scotland star out again, this time to Alaves on a season long deal.
Neil Lennon said he had no idea where this tirade from West Brom was coming from.
“Not that I was aware of. We treated him very well,” Lenny said. “He played a lot of games. Maybe in hindsight I was too good in treating him too well at times, compared to the rest of the group.
“I have no idea where this sort of tirade has come from. This could have been dealt with privately and professionally.
“As a club we have to defend ourselves robustly because it is totally unacceptable.”
Burke hass been used mostly as a substitute in Spain, at the weekend he played for the last half hour in a 3-0 win over Real Valladolid and he knows that this game-time plus the exposure in the international matches for Scotland could help him secure his next move.
“It’s going very well, I’m really enjoying it,” Oli Burke told the Media today ahead of the Cyprus v Scotland Euro Match, as reported by BBC. “I wouldn’t say it’s far different from leagues in other countries I’ve played in.
“I think maybe some tactical things, and the language barrier, but I feel like I’m learning a lot and they’ve made me very welcome.”
Burke is looking for a club where he’s a regular first pick and at one point earlier in the year it looked like that could be at Celtic. He admits that his situation at West Brom is “very difficult” with the BBC reporter today suggesting that he’d be allowed to leave the Hawthorns in the summer.
“I’ve been there so long, but then I’ve not actually played many games for them, so you almost feel like you are not part of that team because I’ve been to other clubs and been on loan,” the former Celtic loanee said.
“I just have to focus on this loan I’m on now and take it all in and hopefully good things come from me going on loan now and getting game time. Hopefully it puts me in the shop window.
“I’d love to be a club and be the first name on the team-sheet every week, but I think it will come in time. I’m still at a good age and I’m just doing everything I can to learn the game.”
West Brom anger towards Neil Lennon in the summer might just have been caused by a realisation that Rodgers leaving Celtic and Lenny taking over killed off their last chance of recouping some of the cash that they spent on Oli Burke.
And while it won’t be a particularly popular opinion, something of a guilty secret, but I liked him in the Hoops and if he’s a free agent in the summer maybe he’d be worth another shot at making it in the Hoops? If the BBC reporter is wrong and there’s a transfer fee involved, well, that’s a different story and you can’t see Neil Lennon buying Burke, especially after the uncalled for comments from their Director of Football in the summer.
Watch Oli Burke’s Media Conference ahead of Scotland’s game in Cyprus HERE.
