Why Celtic are 'really excited' about Alexandro Bernabei - careful game of patience, training-ground work, being measured

Alexandro Bernabei has two assists in his past two Celtic matches.

Scottish teams don’t often plunder the Primera División, or indeed any other South American leagues, for rising stars. Bernabei was an alluring proposition for the Celtic support, a stocky, rapid full -back with a reputation for attacking at will. Some wanted him to replace the less trendy Greg Taylor, forgetting that he is about as solid a citizen you could have in your team.

Unsurprisingly, Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou has played it cool with Bernabei. A new city, a new language and a new culture. The Argentina Under-19 internationalist therefore had to wait until the last day of that month for his first full outing in green-and-white, in the Premier Sports Cup, away at Ross County. He has only started two league matches since but has contributed an assist in each of them and played very well in Saturday’s 6-1 win over Hibs.

“I am pleased for Alexandro,” Postecoglou said of the player’s progression. “Again, he is one we are really excited about. I think because of what happened last year [new summer signings coming into the team right away], people probably expected us to throw new signings in straight off the plane again. But this, season that was never the plan. I wanted to make sure we bedded them in properly, particularly Alexandro.

“He is 21, it’s his first time out of Argentina and I didn’t want to throw him in and overwhelm him immediately. We see a really bright future for him and we wanted to integrate him slowly. Alexandro has been really good in training, he wants to learn and he has a real appetite for improvement. We have been able to be measured but there was never any doubt in my mind that he could make an impact – and you will see that from now on. We have also had the luxury of not needing to throw him in, as Greg Taylor has had an outstanding season. We have been able to ease Alexandro in gradually.”

Postecoglou has to decide whether to keep Bernabei in his starting XI for Wednesday’s Premier Sports Cup quarter-final against Motherwell at Fir Park or bring back Taylor, who still holds the mantle of Celtic’s first-choice left-back. The Australian is pleased with his evolution since arriving in Glasgow and may decide to keep Taylor fresh for Saturday’s league match away at Hearts.

“We still have 28 league games plus cups to go, so Alexandro will play his part,” continued Postecoglou. “He has a couple of assists in his last two games and that was part of the attraction with Alexandro. He is exciting going forward and in the modern game, if you can get defensive players with good attacking outputs, they are great assets.

“We certainly saw that when we scouted Alexandro and we knew that he could be good for us going forward. But he’s also improving the defensive side of his game. We have worked closely with him and he’s taking it all on board. We see how good Alexandro has been in training and we are probably the least surprised by how played against Hibs. But he’s only a young guy and there is more to come.”