Stephen McManus revealed that his primary focus as Celtic B manager is nurturing young talent and guiding them towards first-team opportunities…
McManus alongside former Newcastle skipper Shay Given spoke to The Celtic Star and other fan media outlets on Thursday morning at Celtic Park ahead of promoting next month’s ’Adidas Cup’ trophy fixture between the two sides.
The ex-Hoops defender has led the club’s B team squad for the past three seasons. Last season, McManus guided Celtic’s academy squad to a runners-up position in the Lowland League, Scotland’s fifth division.
In Thursday’s media conference ahead of the Brendan Rodgers’ side’s friendly against Newcastle United next month, McManus was asked about his main priorities as B team manager: “It always remains the same,” he said.
“Our job is to try and develop young players to get them into our first team. It never changes. For us, it’s not results on the paramount. They’re not the most important thing. That’s what the manager and the first team staff has.”
“Our job is to develop young players to try and get them ready for first team football. Hopefully it’s in our first team or it’s somebody else’s first team. That’s what we try and do.”
“We try and bridge the gap. The biggest jump in our football club is between the first team and the B team. There’s absolutely no doubt. So our job is to try and develop the players. Again, we trust experiences that we’ve had the benefit. For us, we’ve been that young player.”
All away tickets for this pre-season encounter on Saturday 19 July against Eddie Howe’s men at Celtic Park have been sold, ensuring a strong turnout from the North East of England at Paradise.
Celtic supporters are now able to buy tickets through the official Celtic FC website’s general sale – you can purchase tickets HERE.
Conor Spence
A third year student of media and communication?
Ok, firstly Conor….Raison D’etre? ( the purpose of existence?). Have you recently discovered Jean Paul Sartre? You are writing for Scottish football fans, not existentialists. Stop trying to be clever. Most people in Scotland don’t speak French. You are supposed to understand that if your career revolves around communication. It’s as simple as that.
Secondly, the essence of the article. Celtics B team is all about providing players for the Senior squad. Are you trying to get a job for the sun or daily record. Try a new approach to football journalism in this country and write intelligent articles. Don’t just churn out embarrassing clickbait articles. Read intelligently written books on football and develop your own style. Look beyond the obvious…for that look up ‘the glory game’ by Hunter Davies.
Good luck with your career though
Conor doesn’t write the headlines, so he is not guilty of that. What he did do was go along to Celtic Park last week, spoke to Stephen McManus, the head coach for the Celtic B Team, and asked him the question before writing up the article for The Celtic Star. If that’s not football journalism but is instead churned out click-bait, we must be doing something badly wrong.
As for referencing football books, The Celtic Star has published plenty, try reading Matt Corr’s two volumes of Celtic in the Thirties, or maybe those would also be regarded as click-bait too? Conor is an outstanding young man, who through The Celtic Star is getting access to Celtic players and also the manager and has impressed every time we’ve asked him to represent this site. HH
Rather an unpleasant and unnecessary response to the article. Just be.nice and
less condescending. A more pertinent line of questioning is why is the Academy not doing the very thing it’s supposed to be doing and what value we get from all the money spent on it and all the people involved in I understand that we get money for players from it but still trawling around buying young players worldwide rather than home developed ?