Football Scotland reported recently that there is speculation Stephen Welsh may leave the club for Italy.

This is a path that has become well-worn for young Scottish talent. Aaron Hickey, Josh Doig, Lewis Ferguson and Ewan Henderson have all made positive impressions in Serie A, boosting the reputation of Scottish football in general.

The idea of young Scottish talent making a mark in a major European league has something appealing about it. It shows maturity, confidence, curiosity as well as a willingness to develop.

And one cannot blame Welsh for considering a move away from Celtic. Under Ange Postecoglou, the Scot played the equivalent of 9.3 matches in 2021-22 and only 4.3 equivalent matches in 2022-23 in the SPFL. By the end of the Australian’s tenure, it could be argued he had slipped to fifth choice after Cameron Carter-Vickers, Carl Starfelt, Tomoki Iwata and Yuki Kobayashi.

But Celtic now have a new manager in Brendan Rodgers and he is very much his own man. He is also renowned for improving young players.

Could a redemption arc be on the cards for Welsh?

Welsh vs Starfelt

 There is no argument that Carter-Vickers is a nailed-on starter, if not the first name on the team sheet.

Therefore, Celtic’s other centre-backs are competing to be his partner.

The incumbent for most of the last two seasons has been Starfelt. The Swede was occasionally error-prone, with a tendency for his front-foot defending style to be over-optimistic in terms of what balls could be won and for him to be dragged under high balls by lofty strikers.

There was a discernible improvement in Starfelt’s play, however, in the treble-winning season just past.

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If we take Stephen Welsh’s last season of major SPFL contribution in 2020-21 as a comparison to Starfelt's last season:

Starfelt is much less likely to be dribbled past, being gifted with deceptive pace. He also has by far the greater success in aerial duels, winning 71 per cent over Welsh’s 65 per cent, even if Starfelt could not be considered an aerially dominant centre-back.

Welsh is more capable of reading the play to gain interceptions and tellingly, he is able to get more passes away whether under pressure or not.

This is a key consideration under both previous and current managers who are not only looking to control possession but for their defenders to break lines.

Centre-Back Benchmark

Before we consider the question of passing out from the back (and remember that passing is by far the most common on-ball action for centre-backs), here is Welsh’s place in the centre-back peer group since 2014-15.

Carter-Vickers is well to the top right, meaning he is up there as being one of the top centre-backs at Celtic in the last eight seasons.

Ideally, to be Champions League competitive, Celtic need another similarly talented player to partner Carter-Vickers.

Welsh, mainly due to a relative lack of aerial duel success, is amongst the lower Celtic centre-backs in defensive action success rate. He has a similar win rate to Moritz Jenz, which illustrates why Celtic had no need to replace Welsh with a player of similar ability at great expense.

Where Welsh is strong is that he recovers possession from defensive actions at a rate more akin to Carter-Vickers. This is likely the upside to being a smaller centre back and, allied to his anticipation, is able to recover the ball following duel situations.

In summary, Welsh profiles as a decent, middling option compared to historical peers, albeit with age on his side.

Distribution

Back to moving the ball.

This is a key consideration, as detailed above, and will be the same under Rodgers.

Current players' data from last season is included apart from Welsh, where 2021-22 is used as he made 24 appearances across all competitions.

A feature of this view is that team style is as important as player style. Under managers prior to Postecoglou, there wasn’t such a demand to move the ball as aggressively through the lines. You can see that last season's centre-backs are clustered, reflecting the demand of the system. 

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As mentioned, Welsh played very few minutes this season, but he had been included - he was averaging 15.83 pack passes per 90 minutes – he would be higher than any other centre-back in this metric.

Conclusion

If you search for articles on the Celtic By Numbers site, you’ll see that in the past, it has been concluded Welsh is a more than adequate backup but not yet an obvious starter at centre-back.

He was admirable in 2021-22 when Postecoglou was attempting a rebuild and amid change and injury, Welsh did well when called upon.

Last season was a definite stalling point in his career. In a way, it would be interesting to see another Scottish talent flourish in Serie A and boost the feel-good factor around the national team.

However, much will depend on how Rodgers feels about what the Scot can contribute to his evolution.

Another consideration: Celtic are not well endowed in the home-grown player department as regards the composition of the European match day squad. If Celtic does not have at least eight players that qualify under the rules, then they risk going into Europe’s premier competition with a depleted squad.

It all comes back to the fact that Welsh doesn’t yet show he is a definite starter but is more useful than that of a similarly skilled non-home-grown option.