Michael Stewart ‘surprised’ Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers is still picking 22-year-old

One of Celtic’s summer signings, Paulo Bernardo, has been subjected to some bizarre criticism from BBC pundit, Michael Stewart.

The former Hearts man launched into a surprising assessment of the 22-year-old Portuguese midfielder after watching Celtic toil in a 1-0 win over Ross County at Parkhead.

Stewart said; “I am surprised Brendan Rodgers is giving him so much game time. He doesn’t strike me as a Brendan Rodgers type. He doesn’t have loads of energy.

“He doesn’t look like he has an eye for a pass, I couldn’t really tell you what his main attributes are in the game.

“By no means is he is a bad player but I don’t look at him and think ‘he’s a standout, he’s a top performer’.

“I don’t really see what he brings to the team.”

Michael Stewart’s Paulo Bernardo comments are very bizarre

Look, if these comments came at the start of the season then I would probably have been fully onboard with them.

Dropping in and out of the team, Bernardo seemed to be a player Rodgers preferred for the finesse of the Champions League rather than the bread and butter of the Scottish Premiership.

However, Bernardo has started the last five league games for Celtic and has seriously impressed. Goals in the 2-1 win over Rangers and the 3-0 win over Dundee alongside very good performances have made the youngster undroppable recently.

Rated an average of 7.4 by Fotmob, in the last five games Bernardo has only dropped below an eight against Ross County yesterday and in the 2-0 win over Livingston in December. And even at that, he was rated 7.3 and 7.6 respectively.

In the 554 minutes he has played, Bernardo has scored twice, created two, has an 84.6% passing accuracy has had 21 shots on goal and also created five chances.

There are, of course, areas he needs to improve like his defending and tackling as he has won less than 50% of his duels and tackles, but as a creative midfielder, he is doing the job that is required of him.

He still has a lot of work to do to become the finished article but he is only 22 and is still learning under Brendan Rodgers who was brought in to implement a new system to take on Europe’s giants.

Hopefully, by the end of the season, Celtic will be crowned champions once again with Bernardo at the heart of the title win. What a way to prove the popular BBC pundit wrong that would be.

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