Brendan Rodgers backs ‘first class’ Luke McCowan for Scotland honours

Brendan Rodgers has backed Luke McCowan for Scotland honours after declaring the midfielder a fully-fledged Celtic player.

But the Celtic boss hinted the former Dundee player’s star turn on Saturday might not be relevant to the pre-planned team selection for Wednesday’s visit to face second-placed Aberdeen in the William Hill Premiership.

McCowan scored once and set up three others as Celtic scored five first-half goals in a 5-0 win over Ross County after Rodgers made six changes following the Champions League draw with Club Brugge.

The 26-year-old has made 10 appearances since joining Celtic in the final minutes of the transfer window, seven of them off the bench, and has already netted three goals.

Rodgers said: “What was great about the weekend was it shows you that football really is a process of bringing players in.

“If you look at the likes of Luke McCowan, who’s only just come in, he’s adapted his style in order to play for us, has a winning mentality, has great technical quality, tactically he’s learning all the time. And you see the clarity in his work and how good he was.

“He was fantastic for Dundee, but was able to come into here and step by step throughout a process. He’s now come in and absolutely been first class. So, he and the other players that come in, done very, very well.

“But they’re not cover players. I would have absolutely no hesitation in starting the same team at Aberdeen. However, we always have to plan for the games and the proximity of the games, and obviously over the course of the coming months.

“I had in my mind what the Aberdeen team was going to be, in every respect, over the weekend. But it’s always nice whenever players come in and perform and really confirm their qualities.

“And that was the beauty of the weekend – it was so fluid, so fast and the tempo was really, really good.

“You want your players to come in and perform, and every single one of them did that. But there’s so many games. In order to keep the energy in the team, someone can do absolutely brilliant in that game, but it might only be a couple of days later.”

Rodgers believes McCowan has shown he has the physical qualities to go with his technical ability.

“He’s a learner, there’s absolutely no doubt about that. He’s got a great career ahead of him here at Celtic,” Rodgers said. “He has all the tools.

“It’s not an easy adaptation to come into a big club with big expectations and pressure. But he settled in really, really well.

“He’s now one of us because I see this winning mentality, I see the hunger he has to learn. I see the humbleness every day and how hard he works.”

When asked about his Scotland prospects, Rodgers said: “Every good player can’t play at international level. International level for me is about technique, tactical idea and having a level of speed and mobility that allows you to get around the field.

“So you’ll have some really good players, but just maybe aren’t quite cut out for that mobility and fast pace at international level.

“Luke has that. If I look at him technically, physically, that was the analysis that we did before bringing him in to see where he was at in terms of his running power, his physicality. So that’s there at a really, really high level. So we know he can do that.

“Technically, he’s finding the comfort now in the game. Tactically, like I said, he’s shown that you see how quickly now he’s adapted. Him and Paulo Bernardo were brilliant at the weekend in terms of how they linked together.

“So that tells you he’s learning all the concepts and principles of how we play. Like I said, he has personality and there’s absolutely no doubt. If you play for Celtic, he’s going to be able to play for Scotland for sure.”