Celtic youngster Joey Dawson's superb run of form assessed

Five games, eight goals. Seventeen games, 15 goals, three assists. Whichever way you choose to count them up, Celtic B striker Joey Dawson is enjoying an impressive season in front of goal.

Dawson only arrived at Celtic around 18 months ago. He is Scunthorpe-born and from professional football stock - his father, Andy, played for Hull City while his uncle Kevin turned out for Chesterfield and his uncle Michael was a Tottenham Hotspur stalwart capped four times by England.

Unlike his dad and uncles, all defenders by trade, this particular Dawson is a striker. This season, strike he has.

Anyone with 18 goal contributions in 17 games is bound to draw some attention but his recent run of form has been off the scale. 

It began with a substitute appearance in the B-team Glasgow Derby before the new year. He grabbed two goals, one with his first touch after coming on.

That earned him a start against Civil Service Strollers; another two goals. Next up, Simon Ferry's Open Goal Broomhill; two goals again. Gala Fairydean broke the streak but only slightly - he scored just the one against them. Tranent became his latest victim just this weekend when he grabbed a goal, saw one dubiously disallowed and assisted the winner.

It is, simply, the kind of form that gets noticed. As a result he has caught the eye outside Lennoxtown and the Lowland League. Linked with a loan move to Caley Thistle in the Championship, the assumption is that will be the 19-year-old's next step.

The understanding that Oh Hyeon-gyu is about to become a Celtic player likely accelerates that idea, yet the South Korean has not played a competitive match since October 29 last year - he will not necessarily be ready to go straight into the team. 

Add to that the fact Giorgos Giakoumakis transfer speculation simply refuses to go away, while simultaneously reports that Celtic are closing in on a deal for Cho Gue-sung fall by the wayside too, and what if it's not the Lowland League or a loan for Dawson? What if it's a first-team opportunity, however fleeting? What would he bring?

At 6ft 2in and fairly stocky, mobility has been highlighted as a potential stumbling block if he is to scale up to first-team level under Ange Postecoglou.

That said, Giakoumakis was not signed as a man who technically fit the mould of a Postecoglou striker and he has been just fine; the manager always references his use for players of different profiles within his overall high-intensity, attacking framework.

Indeed, Dawson got the nod on Boxing Day 2021 when the first team was ravaged by Covid and injury issues. When Kyogo Furuhashi went down injured he entered the fray as a 15th-minute substitute and played the rest of the match up front with Liel Abada in an unfamiliar 3-4-1-2.

It must be said, he did well enough. He took just one shot that day - it was on target - but just as notably was often busying himself by dropping deeper as an additional passing option against a stubborn Saints resistance.

Dawson was, despite supposed mobility questions, a useful pressing presence that afternoon in Perth. He emerged with 16 pressures and seven counter-pressures - the team's second-highest in each category.

He also speaks very well - an underrated attribute at times. More importantly, he talks football really well.

"We said after [the derby win] that we need to keep the standards high and I thought from the first minute everyone did that," Dawson said after his brace against Civil Service Strollers recently. 

"We came out right from the first minute, counter-pressing when we lost the ball, everyone’s intensity and standards were on it sky high. That’s why we got the result we did.

“We’d said before the game that top teams win after top results and I thought you saw that in the performance. 

“I think with the way we want to play – and the way the first team want to play – fitness is massive with the pressing and the counter-pressing when we lose the ball.”

That kind of chat will surely please not just his B team coaches Darren O'Dea and Stephen McManus but first-team boss Postecoglou as well. 

The whole point of the recent B side changes - installing O'Dea and McManus as well as giving them more Lennoxtown time - was in the manager's words to "see them every day, talk to the coaches every day so we're aware of the progress they're all making... we feel confident we can provide them a pathway to becoming Celtic footballers".

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It's not an easy path to tread. Some youngsters - think Owen Moffat, Ewan Henderson, Armstrong Okoflex, Aaron Hickey - actively chose to leave off the back of a lack of clear first-team pathways.

There is hope, though, and it's been offered from precisely the place B-teamers like Dawson would want it to be: Postecoglou himself.

Centre-back Bosun Lawal was handed his competitive first-team debut in the Scottish Cup win over Morton at the weekend while, after he and Dawson's team-mate Matthew Anderson signed a new deal recently, the manager spoke about youth development at his pre-St Mirren presser.

"He [Anderson] is another one who, over the next six to 12 months, will be hoping to make an impact at first-team level," he said. "I really do believe that. I think the work Stephen and Darren are doing is outstanding.

"I am in constant dialogue with the guys about how things are going and I am seeing it with my own eyes that there is improvement there... it is about us providing him with the opportunity and him grasping the opportunity."

Ultimately that's what the B team is about. All these young players can do is put themselves in place for an opportunity when - and they must believe it will be a case of when, rather than if - one comes along.

In that sense, Dawson is clearly doing something right so far.

This piece is an extract from the latest Celtic Digest newsletter, which is emailed out every weekday evening with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from The Celtic Way team.

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