Owen Moffat: Celtic kid's startling rise discussed by manager

Ange Postecolgou has used the case of Owen Moffat to highlight why all young players must be ready to take their chance.

Owen Moffat comes on for Kyogo Furuhashi during Celtic's Premier Sports Cup triumph.

The Celtic manager admitted the winger, who turns 20 next month, “wasn’t in the calculations” with regards to a first-team appearance as recently as two weeks ago.

But he has since made his debut and won a League Cup winner’s medal in the space of five days.

Moffat came off the bench for his bow against Ross County last midweek and then came on for the tiring Mikey Johnston for the last seven minutes of Sunday’s 2-1 win in the Premier Sports final.

It’s a startling rise to prominence for the Celtic Academy product and his cameos augur well for the future.

He had played just over 30 minutes of competitive football and already has a major honour to show for it.

“That’s football life,” said Postecoglou. “Life is about opportunity. Not just being in the right place at the right time, but also being ready for it.

“Moff probably wasn’t in the calculations two weeks ago, but we just had so many injuries and we brought him into training and he has looked bright. We brought him on the other night and he looked good.

“That, to me, is a lesson for every player out there. You have to be ready for that opportunity.

No one is going to write down the date it’s going to come, that’s not how a career goes.

“It was good to have him to be able to throw on at the end there, because I knew Mikey and Kyogo wouldn’t last the distance.”