Liam Burt

This thread will still be going in the year 2031

 

Barnsley are leading the chase for former Celtic and Rangers midfielder Liam Burt.

Record Sport revealed last month the Scotland Under-21 star was attracting interest from the English Championship after terminating his Hoops contract.


The Tykes are the
front-runners with
 discussions having stepped up in the past
few days.

Burt chose to leave Celtic halfway through a two-year deal last month in pursuit of first team football and also has options in Scotland.


The playmaker, who has been capped five times at Under-21 level, sees his future south of the border and Barnsley want to hand him that opportunity.

Despite being just 21, Burt has crossed the Glasgow divide twice already. He began his career in the youth system at Celtic before joining Rangers following his release at the age of 15


Under the guidance of Mark Warburton he was handed his senior debut against Raith Rovers at the age of 17 in March 2016. Burt was also a sub against Hearts later that year.


Burt struggled to make an impression under Steven Gerrard before being handed a second chance at Celtic after his Gers contract expired.

He featured twice in the Challenge Cup but saw his route to the first team blocked by the likes of attacking midfielders Ryan Christie and Tom Rogic

 

What a weird signing this was. Good luck to
him.

 

It heavily came across as a * you to Rangers after he liked Celtic tweets. If it had worked out it would have been funny but hey ho it didn't. I hope it goes well for him.

 

Another one of them signings that mystified me

 

Former Celtic and Rangers midfielder Liam Burt scored twice in a bounce match for Barnsley on Monday as he closes in on a move to the English Championship.

The Scotland Under 21 midfielder is training with the Tykes as he looks to kick start his career after spells on both sides of the Glasgow divide.

Burt shone in the bounce match as he netted a brace and set up another in his side’s 4-1 win.

Barnsley boss Gerhard Struber is keen on the 21-year-old playmaker who will spend the rest of the week with the Yorkshire club.

Burt, capped five times at under 21 level for Scotland, left Celtic midway through a two-year deal last month after struggling to push his way into Neil Lennon’s first team.

He had returned to his boyhood club last summer after three years with Rangers where he featured three times for the top team under Mark Warburton.

 

Only five men have played for both Rangers and Celtic post-World War 2.

Alfie Conn, Mo Johnston, Kenny Miller, Steven Pressley and Mark Brown.


The former Ibrox prodigy showed huge bottle by moving across the city to Parkhead in 2019.

However, unfortunately for him, he was unable to fulfil his dream of playing a senior game for his boyhood heroes.

Covid-19 had a part to play in that. Kudos, to the youngster though, for giving it a go.

We all know the extra baggage that comes with playing in Glasgow’s goldfish bowl.


The rivalry between these two Scottish giants is arguably the most bitter in world football.

But the chance to swap the royal blue jersey for his beloved green and white hoops was a no-brainer, even with the inevitable social media abuse that came his way.

“I wasn’t surprised by the stick to be honest”, Burt told Football Scotland.

“I dealt with it and I still kind of get it at this moment in time. But that’s football.

“It’s never really affected me and I don’t think it ever will.

“It was one I was waiting on and expected to happen, so it never came out the blue.”

Aged just 17, Burt made his Rangers debut from the bench against Raith Rovers in 2016.

His manager, Mark Warburton, was a huge fan of the talented winger, billed then as one of the hottest prospects in Scottish football


At that moment in time, the teenager looked destined to become a future Ibrox star.

Football can be a cruel mistress, though, and just two cameo appearances followed.


involved a good number of times and then I made my debut against Raith the year they got promoted”, Burt recalled.

“I came on against Hearts in the December Premiership game. Then after that, I felt a niggle.

“But I was always training with the first-team so I was hopeful that my chance would come again.

“It didn’t though, and then I got injured around March. I waited until August to get the operation, which was bad timing.

“Mark Warburton left earlier in the year and I was injured when Graeme Murty was the manager.

“So it was quite bad timing but I’ve come through it a lot stronger.

“When I made my debut, everything fell into place because I was with Scotland Under-17s, 19s and 21s and I was with the Rangers first-team. So everything was on the up and everything was going well.

“But obviously football doesn’t always go up, you are always going to be thrown curve balls, it’s how you deal with it.”

Eager to play competitive football rather than warm the bench, Burt spent spells out on loan with Dumbarton and Alloa.

However, with his pathway to the Rangers first-team diminishing, he decided to look for a fresh challenge.

As fate would have it, his career would come full circle when Celtic offered him a shock return to Parkhead – eight years after leaving for the Light Blues academy.




He said: “It was around March that I had a conversation with Rangers and Craig Mulholland and I was hinting that I wasn’t really enjoying my football.

“I had just come back from an injury, I went out on loan to Alloa at the start of the season.

“Jim Goodwin then wanted me to stay at Alloa from January for the rest of the season, but Craig never really wanted that. I ended up staying with the Rangers reserves.

“I knew then I wasn’t really interested in signing a year contract to be perfectly honest.

“Craig and I had a conversation. He then spoke to Mark Allen and came back and told me the compensation for myself would be a bit of a problem if I was to go and play somewhere else.

“I think they were owed a fair bit because I was there for a number of years.

“We then ended up coming to an agreement that there would be no fee.

“I think Craig spoke to one of the Hibs coaches and maybe he thought that Hibs would be one of the best options available for me. He was happy for me to go there for free.

“My agent then got that down in writing that there would be no compensation in my contract. That then opened up a good number of doors and a couple more clubs were interested.

“That’s when Celtic got in touch. I just wanted to go and enjoy my football.

“I knew a good few boys who were at Celtic and obviously I supported them, so it was quite an easy decision.

“I knew if I went to Celtic, I would enjoy playing football and wearing the strip again. So that’s how it all came about.

“As soon as they found out that I was leaving when my contract expired on June 1, Celtic contacted me in the middle of May to go and play in a game.

“But I was just coming back from an injury and I said no at the time because I wasn’t fully fit.

“I explained that it would be quite a hard conversation to have with Craig Mulholland if I was still under contract at Rangers and I was going to go and play with Celtic.

“Maybe if Rangers knew that, they would have put the compensation clause back in my contract. So I kept it quiet.

“When my contract ended, I then signed for Celtic. I had a couple of coaches from Rangers wishing me good luck. There was no real anger. It was just the coaches wishing me all the best.”




Burt hit the ground running at Celtic. Seven goals in 12 games for the development side caught the eye of Neil Lennon.

Fans started talking when he notched a hat-trick and two assists during a 6-0 demolition of League Two Stenhousemuir.

But as Celtic hunted nine-in-a-row and a quadruple Treble, the Covid-19 pandemic shattered any possibility of a first-team breakthrough as the season was brought to an abrupt halt.

He said: “At clubs like Celtic and Rangers, you need to be a standout to get the opportunity. It was bad timing with Covid. I was coming up to the time where they would have offered a second year.

“I scored a good few goals and had a few training sessions with the first-team. At that time, they were miles ahead of Rangers.

“If Covid hadn’t curtailed the league, I might have been given a chance.

“But again, that was the nine-in-a-row season, it was always going to be difficult.

“I thoroughly enjoyed myself at Celtic anyway. I scored a good number of goals. I was disappointed with the way it ended with Covid.

“We were due to play a Cup Final on the Tuesday after the Rangers vs Celtic game on the Saturday, which was when it all got cancelled. I never really got the chance after that.

“The first-team were training up at Lennoxtown with all the social distancing and we were still getting training programmes sent through from our sports scientists and we were having to go and run ourselves




“It was obviously a tough time for everybody and down at Barrowfield, people weren’t allowed to go and train.

“So we never really had a full face-to-face discussion because obviously that wasn’t available. It was a strange time for myself and everybody else involved in that decision.”

Burt, 22, spent nine months without a club as his dream of playing for Celtic was left in tatters.

He eventually landed a deal with Bohemians and is now starring in the League of Ireland.

And with nine goals and eight assists to his name this year, the level-headed playmaker is optimistic for the future.




Burt added: “I’m loving every minute of my time in Ireland.

“This is my first full, professional season, really.





“I think I’ve developed massively as a player, but I’ve improved as a person as well which has probably helped me with my football.

“I’ve been getting regular starts and good game time.

“I feel I’ve done well with the opportunity I’ve been given so hopefully that can continue.”