Tom English: McCourt a break from the norm, but no world-beater

TRACING the origins of a rumour in football can be as futile sometimes as trying to catch lighting in a bottle.

Where, for instance, did Kenny Dalglish’s reported interest in signing Paddy McCourt come from? Sure, the Celtic winger had just produced some wondrous football, and two goals, for Northern Ireland in a European qualifier against the Faroes and, yes, McCourt’s second strike on the night was a total gem even allowing for the paucity of the opposition. It became an internet hit, with 170,000 viewings on YouTube. Where, for instance, did Kenny Dalglish’s reported interest in signing Paddy McCourt come from? Sure, the Celtic winger had just produced some wondrous football, and two goals, for Northern Ireland in a European qualifier against the Faroes and, yes, McCourt’s second strike on the night was a total gem even allowing for the paucity of the opposition. It became an internet hit, with 170,000 viewings on YouTube.

Even if Dalglish saw it, though, do you think he’d be sufficiently moved to make an inquiry? This is a manager who has just shelled out £20m for Stewart Downing, £16m for Jordan Henderson and £9m for Charlie Adam, three midfielders who, when everybody at Liverpool is fit, will compete with Steven Gerrard, Raul Meireles, Dirk Kuyt, Maxi Rodriguez and Lucas for just four slots.

Frankly, I can visualise Dalglish admiring McCourt’s skill while chuckling at the same time at his various playful monikers; the “Derry Pele” and the “Messi of Northern Ireland”. It was reported last week that the Liverpool manager had been rebuffed by Celtic, but I’m more inclined to believe that the story had a little less substance to it than all that, that it was a fanciful flier, the last stirrings of the silly season.

McCourt is a puzzler of a player. He has a mesmeric way of performing at times; great balance, great control of the ball and a wonderfully-cool finish, be it a precise dink over the top of an out-rushing goalkeeper or a calm side-foot into the corner. He exposes bad defenders. Terrorises them, even. His goals-to-starts ratio for Celtic since he joined in 2008 is excellent. Technically, he’s probably the best footballer in Scotland and yet how much game-time has he got to show for it?

At the age of 27, and more than nine years after his international debut off the bench against Spain, last week’s qualifying match against the Faroes was his first competitive start for Northern Ireland. That’s an instructive statistic. But there are others.

In his time at Celtic he has started just one Old Firm game. In Europe, he’s played two minutes against Braga, 14 minutes against Arsenal and 13 minutes against Hamburg. We saw him for just one minute in Celtic’s Scottish Cup final victory against Motherwell. In Neil Lennon’s other final as Celtic manager, last season’s Co-operative Insurance Cup extra-time loss to Rangers, McCourt was only brought on to the field in the 103rd minute.

You cannot escape the conclusion that Lennon doesn’t feel he can go with McCourt from the start all that often, for whatever reason. McCourt has played 52 games for Celtic but has appeared in only 14 from the beginning. Ten goals is a fine return, then, for a guy who rarely plays. And most of the ten have been pretty special. Or special in an SPL sense.

McCourt has shown that he can destroy tiring defences that were never any great shakes to begin with, but what he hasn’t yet done – and, to be fair, hasn’t been given an opportunity to do – is show he can get the better of stronger defences from the beginning of games.

No amount of wizardry at Windsor Park is going to win him a regular slot in Celtic’s starting line-up, though. He’s too much of an attacker. He leaves too many holes behind him in his pursuit of something creative. He’s not lazy, but his work-rate and probably his fitness are never going to be high enough.

He can run rings around the Faroes, or in Scotland against Inverness Caledonian Thistle and St Mirren and Motherwell and Aberdeen, as he has done in the recent past, but he is destined to fill a cameo role at Parkhead and no kind of role in places like Anfield, despite the chat. Is there much wrong with that? Well, that was a question posed by Lennon himself on Saturday when he was asked if McCourt was happy to be the super sub of Celtic Park. And it’s a good question. McCourt might not get to play in a lot of games – certainly not for 90 minutes – but his worth to his club is abundantly obvious.

He is the maverick, the old school player, the throwback to what Celtic hold dear: a dribbler, an entertainer, somebody who can produce something to send people home happy.

And in a league that could, theoretically, be decided on goal difference in any given season, McCourt’s appearances off the bench have value. He’s not mere decoration.

Lennon said the other day that he thinks as much of McCourt as he does of the men who regularly keep him out of the team and you can see why. Of course he’s no Pele or Messi, but he’s got something and there isn’t a lot of what he’s got in the SPL these days.

So we should take McCourt on his merits. He’s not a Liverpool player but, when he starts running at defenders in the dying minutes of games he is something to see, a break from the norm, a release from some of the agricultural stuff we watch all too often.