Three more years for Ryan Christie to win trophies at Celtic

Ryan Christie wants to rectify his status as an oddity at Celtic Park by winning a major honour with the club.
Celtic's young attacking midfielder Ryan Christie has signed a new three-year deal with the club. Picture: Gary Hutchison/SNSCeltic's young attacking midfielder Ryan Christie has signed a new three-year deal with the club. Picture: Gary Hutchison/SNS
Celtic's young attacking midfielder Ryan Christie has signed a new three-year deal with the club. Picture: Gary Hutchison/SNS

The 23-year-old’s good form since breaking back into the Celtic first-team last month saw him rewarded with a new three-year contract yesterday.

Now he is desperate to amend a curious quirk. Despite being a Celtic player for nearly four years, his only major honour to date was won while at first club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Christie lifted the Scottish Cup with his hometown side in 2015 after a victory over Falkirk and signed for Celtic shortly afterwards, returning to Inverness on loan.

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Celtic have swept all before them in the last two years while winning a double treble under Brendan Rodgers but Christie has spent most of this spell on loan with Aberdeen. The teams met in the Scottish Cup final in 2017 but Christie was forced to sit it out and fled to Florida on holiday to escape the mixed emotions.

“I had no clue about where I would be sitting, what suit I was meant to wear or anything,” he recalled yesterday.

“So I just thought, ‘I’m getting out of here’ and I went to the other side of the world. I watched it on TV and it felt really strange as I didn’t know who to support and what was going on.

“But hopefully now there are more finals to come and I will get the chances.”

The midfielder looked to be on the way out at Celtic even as recently as a few weeks ago. But an influential cameo appearance after coming on as a half-time substitute in the 3-0 Scottish Cup semi-final win over Hearts at the end of last month re-ignited his Celtic career.

Christie has now scored three goals in five appearances since re-establishing himself in Rodgers’ side and has been called up to the Scotland squad for the forthcoming matches against Albania and Israel.

“In the short term, I just want to kick on and keep my place in starting XI,” he said. “I want to keep making an impact when I can.

“Long term, I want to have a proper impact on this club winning silverware. When you are growing up as a kid, that’s what you want to do. You dream about winning trophies and Celtic is an incredible club to do that at. There is the chance to win trophies every year and to be part of that would be very special.

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“You see the photos around the stadium of winning teams and I want to make my mark,” he added.

“The boys have been incredible in the last few season, creating history. Personally, I want to help that and bring more trophies to the club.

“It’s a great period for the club and it’s exciting to be part of it. It is a little bit difficult when you are at another club and you see the success Celtic had.

“To be fair, I loved my time at Aberdeen so it wasn’t too bad looking on and feeling like I was missing out. I was enjoying my football a lot up there and that has helped me come back as a better player.

“But missing the finals definitely gives me the added boost to come back and play this time.”