One thing that annoyed me against Alashkert, perhaps more than it should have, was the fact that in energy sapping conditions, we only made one substitution.
Yes, the game wasn’t quite put to bed but for the last half hour, Scott Arfield in particular could barely run and Steven Davis didn’t look his normal self, but in Stephen Kelly, we had a player on the bench who could easily have come on and added not only fresh legs, but a composure that was sadly lacking in a very poor second half against an equally as poor opposition.
Kelly is now at the stage where he either needs to be treated as a first-team player properly or allowed to leave, especially when you consider how highly rated he is by his peers.
In pre-season we had James Tavernier describing him as a “baller“, Gary McAllister hailing him as “fantastic” and now we have Steven Davis – who should know what a decent midfielder looks like – tipping Kelly for a “big career” as told to the media ahead of the first Old Firm of the season.
When asked how well the younger players of the squad have integrated with the first-team this season, the Northern Ireland skipper said:
“For a lot of the young lads they have impressed at training, Stephen Kelly has been great since the first day and I really like him on the ball – he has a big career ahead of himself.”
This all begs the question – why wasn’t he trusted against an Alashkert team struggling in their own league?
At some point players like Kelly have to be trusted, we’ve seen with Nathan Patterson that, if they are good enough, and they are given a chance, they can have a positive impact – his team-mates trust him, perhaps Steven Gerrard needs to start listening to them, Davis can’t play forever.